A milestone worth celebrating
2nd Anniversary Gifts
Cotton and paper are the traditional gifts and china the modern theme. Red is the traditional second anniversary colour.
A genuine red rose, finished with a lustrous glaze and 24 karat gold, is a lasting way to mark your first two years together.
The meaning behind your year
Gift ideas
Cotton, Paper and Garnet: Six Anniversary Gift Ideas
A few traditional, a few practical, and all of them better with a note attached.
Sheets worth a lie-in
Good cotton sheets get used every single night, which is more than you can say for most presents. Make the bed with them as a surprise and keep the next morning free.
Your wedding date, stitched
Have your wedding date and a line from your vows embroidered on a cotton handkerchief or pillowcase. Small enough to tuck in a drawer, and the sort of thing that gets handed down.
Matching T-shirts, if you dare
Print two cotton T-shirts with your wedding date, a running joke or the name of the town where you married. Wear them on the day, even if it’s only around the house.
Tickets to something new
Book two tickets to something neither of you has been to before: a comedy show, the ballet, a game at a ground you’ve never visited. Hand them over in a card that says why you picked it.
China for the two of you
China is the modern second anniversary gift. A pair of fine china cups, or a porcelain platter from a local potter, turns a weekend breakfast into a small occasion.
Garnet, red or otherwise
Garnet is the 2nd anniversary stone and the birthstone for January. Deep red is the classic for studs or a pendant, and green or orange garnets suit someone who likes something less expected.
The red glazed rose
A red rose to celebrate two years together
A genuine red rose with a lustrous glazed finish, its petals and leaves edged in 24 karat gold and its stem plated in matching gold. Each rose retains its individual shape and character, so no two are exactly alike—a lasting reminder of your first two years together.
- Includes a certificate of authenticity
- Presented in a luxurious display case, inside a gloss white gift box bearing our debossed gold leaf logo
- A timeless symbol of love, preserved to keep forever
- Rose approximately 30 cm long; display case 34 cm long
What the 2nd means
Why cotton and paper
for two years?
Cotton and paper are the traditional gifts for a second wedding anniversary. Cotton stands for the comfort of everyday married life, and paper for the story of it, which you’ve only just started writing down.
Why cotton and paper
Soft, strong and written down
Cotton starts as a soft, thin fibre and only turns into strong cloth once it has been spun and woven. Two years of marriage works the same way: hundreds of ordinary days, twisted together until they hold.
Paper is for keeping. By now you’ll have a drawer full of it: the marriage certificate, a lease or loan with both your names on it, and the boarding passes from your first trip as a married couple.
Where it began
Cotton first, paper second
In March 1880, Sydney’s Australian Town and Country Journal listed the names of the wedding anniversaries: cotton at one year, paper at two, and leather or straw at three. Presents, it said, had to be made of the anniversary’s material, and the parties were usually organised by the couple’s friends.
Modern American lists swap the first two. Emily Post gives paper for the first anniversary and cotton for the second, with china as the modern gift, and Hallmark also gives cotton. British lists, such as the one in Pears Cyclopaedia, allow paper or cotton.
Around the world
Cotton, paper, leather and straw
In Germany the second anniversary is the Baumwollhochzeit, the cotton wedding, and the first is the paper wedding. Swiss newspaper Blick explains the pairing: paper tears easily and cotton is still soft and unformed, so the names describe a marriage that is still growing stronger.
Russia names the first year the chintz wedding and the second the paper wedding, when friends give albums, notebooks and art books. In France the second is the noces de cuir, the leather wedding, and in Japan it can be a straw wedding or a cotton wedding.
2nd anniversary symbols
Cotton, garnet and cosmos
Cotton, paper and china
Cotton is the American choice for the 2nd anniversary, for comfort that lasts through daily use. Paper is the older Australian and British gift. China, the modern theme, suits a couple still filling their kitchen cupboards.
Garnet
Garnet is a family of closely related minerals rather than a single stone. Egypt’s pharaohs wore red garnet necklaces, and the Romans carved garnet signet rings to press into the wax that sealed important documents.
Cosmos
Cosmos takes its name from the Greek kosmos, meaning order, for its neatly arranged petals. Native to Mexico, it flowers in pink, red, white and maroon, and cut stems last more than a week in a vase.
Celebrating the 2nd
Make a little time for the two of you
Have breakfast at the café you went to the morning after the wedding, watch your wedding video for the speeches you’ve half forgotten, or drive back to where you spent your honeymoon. Two years gives you plenty to remember, and a good reason to make time for each other.
If you like a theme, sow a packet of cosmos, the second anniversary flower, in a pot or a sunny bed. It blooms about seven weeks after sowing and thrives on neglect, which suits a busy second year.
Whatever you plan, put something on paper. A few lines about the past two years make a present you’ll both reread.
More romantic anniversary ideasWhat the 2nd means to others
Letters that capture two years
By the second anniversary the thank-you cards are long sent, and the wedding has become a story you tell at dinner. Writing down what the two years since have been like takes ten minutes and keeps for much longer. Here are three to borrow from, and three real stories about the second anniversary.
Letters to inspire your own
We wrote these as examples. Borrow any line you like.
Dear Matt,
Two years ago you cried before I’d even reached the end of the aisle, then blamed it on hay fever. Your mum still has that photo on her fridge, and I still don’t believe you about the hay fever.
This year we finally unpacked the last box from the move, learnt that the neighbours’ rooster has no off switch, and proved we can share a kitchen the size of a phone box without anyone getting hurt.
You held my hand through Dad’s hip operation, my new job and the great sourdough disaster of March. I held yours through a footy season we will never speak of again.
Apparently this is the cotton anniversary, which explains the new tea towels. The real present is this: I’d marry you again tomorrow, hay fever and all.
All my love,
Hannah
Dear Lou,
The day we married, you walked into that little church in Kiama with a sprig of rosemary in your bouquet for your nan, and every word I’d practised went straight out of my head.
Since then you’ve taught me to fold a fitted sheet (nearly), to ring my brother more than once a year, and that ‘I’ll do it later’ is not a time.
This was the year we bought your uncle’s old Holden and broke down outside Gundagai on the way to Melbourne. We ate servo pies on the bonnet while we waited for roadside assistance, and it’s still one of my favourite days.
Happy anniversary. Tonight I’ll put the bins out without being asked, so you’ll know it’s serious.
Love,
Ollie
Dear us,
We married on a Thursday at the registry office, with two witnesses, a borrowed veil and an officer who got our names wrong twice. Lunch was dumplings. It was perfect, and we’ve been promising everyone a proper party ever since.
So here it is, two years late: Saturday, the backyard, fairy lights from the shed and your brother on the barbecue. No speech will run longer than three minutes, and that includes our mums’.
If we did make a speech, it would say this. Two years is long enough to know each other’s worst moods, and we still look forward to Friday nights. We got the important part right the first time.
See you at the party.
Love,
Mia and Jules
Worth reading
Real stories and finds about the two-year mark. Links open in a new tab.
A week before their second anniversary, blogger Julie Fagan and her husband, Ryan, were stuck. They’d done the paper theme the year before (she gave Ryan a map print and hockey tickets), but neither wanted cotton sheets or towels, so she asked her readers for help. Dozens replied, with ideas from a T-shirt quilt to cotton candy, and the comments still make a handy list to borrow from.
On 22 November 1949, Adelaide’s News reported that Princess Elizabeth had flown to Malta to spend her second wedding anniversary with Philip, then serving there with the Royal Navy. Baby Charles stayed behind in England, a week after his first birthday. Most of the article is about how the young couple planned to bring him up without fuss, down to the small cricket bat his father had already bought him.
This 1910 etiquette book from New York treats the second anniversary as the paper wedding, and its party plans are gloriously over the top. It suggests crepe-paper costumes for the guests, and tissue-paper balloons that burst to shower numbered paper flowers, so each man can find the woman with the matching number. Its list of paper gifts, from fans and lampshades to books and magazine subscriptions, still works.
2nd anniversary FAQ
