#Wifey Diaries: First Anniversary Gift Guide

Okay - Ant & I are not necessarily traditional gift givers.....a majority of the time our gifts to each other are things we can do together.  This started VERY early on in our relationship - our first Christmas presents to each other were a trip to NYC and tickets to see Chris Brown in concert.  We're not usually "stuff" people.  Not that we haven't gotten each other very nice "stuff" gifts - (I LOVE a new purse just as much as the next girl) - but they're less common.  Anyway, the point being....we decided that for our anniversary gifts, we were going to stick to the traditional anniversary gifts as a loose guide.  So I hit the internet and started brainstorming....and had a VERY hard time deciding what I was going to do for our paper anniversary.

I did come across some good ideas along the way!  So I thought I'd put them all in one place - maybe it will help you as you start shopping for your first anniversary gift.

For reference: here is Hallmark's official list of anniversary gifts by year - there are two versions, traditional & modern.

Personalized wedding venue portrait - Letterfest.com
I think these are just the sweetest!  You send in a picture of the place you got married - if you had a church ceremony you can include the reception location as well - and they create a custom sketch of it for you!  I absolutely love this.

Concert Tickets:
Is there a concert coming up your hubby would just LOVE to go to??  Concert tickets are printed on paper - and you've created another newlywed date night! Win win :)

Photo Book:
Ant & I LOVE my publisher for photo books.  Last year we used them to make wedding albums for our parents, and we're in the process of making one for our last vacation.  Make a book to remember your first year of marriage!!! They are SO easy to use and the quality is amazing.  They always have great deals too, if you sign up for their emails!!

Coffee table book:  Does your husband/wife have a particular passion?  Do you love travel, or art?  Find a coffee table book that could become a conversation starter with guests in your home!  When I was looking through this list - this one jumped out at me.  We love travel and are always talking about what our next adventure is going to be!

Customized Travel Map:  My roommate from college has a scratch off travel map, and I love it!  This version I found through mapyourtravels.com is absolutely perfect!  You can customize the plaque on it to say "Mascia family adventures" or anything else you'd like.  It includes four different colored markers to distinguish where you've been and where you dream to go.  

So what did Mr. and Mrs. Mascia give each other for our paper anniversary?

Overnight trip!!
Ant presented me with printed out reservations for a night at the Christopher Dodge House in Providence RI with a copy of the schedule for waterfire!  We have been talking about going to waterfire together for years and never made it - and after our B&B stay in Victoria he wanted to give us a chance to do that again!  So he booked a night in Providence so we can enjoy waterfire without worrying about driving all the way back to CT afterwards.  See?  Technically paper, but oh so much more.  His timing is perfect too - it's in early November, right before I give up my life to the holiday season in retail!

Anniversary Card:  This one sounds oh so obvious - but it fits the criteria!  In this case - my anniversary card to Ant included a surprise that we were going to get massages together that afternoon ;)

Personalized House sketch: - Ant & I have talked about getting a drawing/sketch/painting of our house done to add to our gallery wall above the fireplace, but never actually made any real progress.  When I saw the personalized wedding venue portraits it motivated me to get our house done to surprise Ant.  I found Rita Marie Weddings on Etsy and they were absolutely wonderful in getting me the portrait on time.  The final product was absolutely beautiful!!!  We've been in our house almost two years now, and I thought it was a fitting way to celebrate our first year as an official family.

What did you give your hubs for your first anniversary??  I'd love to add new inspiration to this list!!

xoxo

One Year as Mrs. Mascia

Ahh!  Longest hiatus ever.  Ant and I just celebrated our first anniversary this weekend.  We had THE best weekend - it was exactly what we needed after such a busy couple of weeks!

I have so much to update you on, but I thought now would be the perfect time to share our anniversary photos with you!  We took them a little early....back in June while we were out in Oregon on our PNW road trip.  I thought it would be the perfect way to remember the trip and remember this exciting time in our lives - as newlyweds.  I found Jessi from Echo Photography via instagram!  {see?? sometimes my excessive interest in scrolling for wedding photos comes in handy} I originally reached out to her to see if we could meet up in Seattle, but when we realized ours schedules wouldn't match, she offered to come down in meet us in Oregon!!!  Her photos stood out to me immediately - besides being stunning and capturing special moments with her couples, she does an abolutely incredible job of taking in the scenery around her.  I was officially sold once I saw her bucket list - her love for travel rivals ours.

On our last day on the Oregon coast, Ant and I met Jessi at Cape Kiwanda.  Ant & I had been traveling along the coast all day - so we stopped at some nearby outlets and used the restrooms to put ourselves together.  Then we met Jessi for a cup of coffee before we walked out to the cape, and spent some time chatting about travel and the PNW and how amazing the light was that day - we got the luckiest!!!  

The Oregon coast is STUNNING.  There is no other word for it.  It is so unique and absolutely beautiful Ant and I could not get over it.  Cape Kiwanda is a perfect example of this - you walk along a beach and up this big giant hill of sand and find yourself at a fence that says "do not cross."  So what do you do?  Immediately, and without hesitation, crawl under it and work your way out to the tip.  There's beach, there's rock, there's a mini forest, and its all on the edge of the ocean.  It is unbelievable.  We were so excited to explore every inch of the area - and Jessi was amazing company for all of it!

Anyway, enough gushing about the Oregon coast and Jessi for now - just check out some of the pictures for yourself!  We love that we look back at these and are immediately brought back to this crazy trip we went on.  

xoxo