Our 8th Anniversary Gifts to Each Other

Hi everyone! We’ve taken a short break from posting a blog during Thanksgiving week to spend some quality time with family. But now that the leftovers are eaten and Black Friday deals have been shopped, it’s time to get back to recounting Our Present Journey together. Today we’ll be remembering our 8th anniversary, which is one of the biggest category years with four options! Take a look through the anniversary gift meanings and you’ll see we have Bronze and Pottery in the traditional category and Linens and Lace for modern gifts.

Although we had four options, this was one of those years where we decided to limit each other to three. Bronze and Pottery seemed fun and challenging, and Lace was a shoe-in for obvious reasons. But after some initial research, we just couldn’t find anything special enough for linens for each other. We didn’t need any new sheet sets or clothes at the time, so we opted to not give each other a linen gift this year. Now that we’ve started Our Present Journey, we’re finding so many awesome gifts in that category this year. We wish we knew about them back in 2016! Either way, we had a great year as you’ll read below – enjoy!

Jay to Annie

Bronze

We’ve gone through our fair share of wine bottles over the years and always thought we should start saving the important ones, but never had a place to display or store them. We’d see cool ideas on Pinterest or at friends houses but for whatever reason just never did it. So earlier that summer, while on vacation in Williamsburg, VA we took a tour of the winery and I noticed a large bronze bottle-shaped case full of corks for sale in their store. I secretly bought it and hid in the car – I still wonder if Annie ever saw me! It’s certainly nothing elaborate or huge like you’d see on the internet, but it was simple and meaningful to us having vacationed there many times together. Now it sits prominently in our kitchen and keeps all of our anniversary, birthday and special occasion corks. Seven years later and it’s really starting to fill up!

Pottery

If you caught the Instagram reel of our fireplace mantle, then you’ve already seen this next gift! We didn’t buy this house until two years after this anniversary so we didn’t have this beautiful mantle yet. But that never stopped Annie from being in decorating mode! We previously lived in a townhouse, so I’m not really sure what I was thinking when I bought this huge urn from Pottery Barn. Annie must’ve mentioned something like it in one of those magazines we all get but never subscribed to. So while searching for a gift that year, I figured we’d eventually probably have a nice place to display it. And just a few years later it found its permanent home on our mantle!

Lace

I had obviously been looking forward to this anniversary for many years because of this last gift. Prime opportunity to buy Annie some nice lingerie, because hey, that’s what the list says! Back in 2016, I don’t remember there being a ton of lingerie stores online that I knew about. So I of course went with the tried and true Victoria’s Secret. There will of course be no pictures posted of this gift, but I certainly remember it well wink wink. I didn’t know exactly what Annie would want, so I went fairly safe with a nice navy blue set and added a $50 gift card on top of the gift so she could go shopping for herself. I figured I might as well double up on lace while I had the chance! I later realized she bought comfy pajamas instead of more lingerie. But it’s the thought that counts!

Annie to Jay

Bronze

We’ve talked a little about the meaning behind Our Present Journey before, and this gift is part of it! You also may have caught a glimpse of this if you saw our mantle reel a few weeks ago. I couldn’t find too many bronze options at the time seven years ago. Of course, now we’ve found SO many amazing choices while building this site. That year, I came across an Etsy shop that printed music lyrics on beautiful personalized parchment paper that I could place in a bronze frame. So I had our first dance – Open Arms by Journey – printed alongside our names and wedding date. Unfortunately, the frame broke during our move so we ended up replacing it with a black one. But Jay loved the gift and it’s always a great reminder of a precious moment from our big day!

Pottery

Jay grew up with a big Christmas Village set up in his house every holiday season. He’d always talk about how fun it was to put together with his mom and imagine being one of those little figurines living in the village. The houses all stayed at his parents house so that boyhood dream was gone – but not for long! I thought he might like to start his own village at our house, so I bought him a house that was designed after the Griswold house in Christmas Vacation – his favorite Christmas movie. Of course, this was not pottery per se, but it’s made of porcelain, which is close enough in my book! We’ve added a few other houses over the years but haven’t quite built out the full village of his dreams. Now that we’re writing about it, Jay has already picked out a few more pieces to order. Looks like we may have a full village by next season!

Lace

I know what you’re thinking. And I of course knew what Jay was thinking. But I didn’t do it! I assumed he would buy me lingerie for the lace gift and I thought about doing the same. But I wanted to mix it up a little bit because how many pieces does a girl really need? Anyway, on to the actual lace gift. Jay had been eyeing these casual dress shoes from Johnston & Murphy for months, but felt spending almost $200 on shoes for himself was too much. I really liked the Chukka design and thought he’d look great in them for dates and casual work events. So I ended up buying a few different colors and sizes and told him to pick one so I could quickly return the rest! And shoes have laces… so, it’s a lace gift, right? He was thrilled to finally have these shoes without any guilt of spending the money himself. And seven years later he still wears them often.

Thanks for reading about our big eighth anniversary gift haul! This was a fun year with so many options for each other. We’re about a month away from our big 15th anniversary and we have seven more years to write about. Hope we can get them all done in time! Meanwhile, if you haven’t checked out our Instagram page recently, please follow us there for even more incredible anniversary gift options. Also feel free to DM or email us if you want to share any of your anniversary gift stories. We love hearing from all of you!