Our 5th & 10th Anniversary Gifts to Each Other

We’re mixing it up a little bit and writing about two anniversaries in one post – our 5th and 10th! These were such big milestones for us we felt that they should be told at the same time. We married five years after we met, so technically these anniversaries marked 10 and 15 full years together! Our first five years of marriage were full of love, travel and deciding on how to build a life together. The next five years brought us three incredible children and the family we always dreamed of. It’s truly amazing how much can change over the course of just a few years.

So for the 5th anniversary gifts, we will be sharing what we gave for Wood in the traditional category and Silverware for modern. And then for our 10th anniversary, the traditional and modern categories are Aluminum/Tin and Diamond. We know this is a lot to handle in one post, so make sure you read through the meanings to see what each of these gifts symbolize!

If you’ve been following us on Instagram, you’ll notice that the countdown is officially on to our big 15th anniversary! December 27th is rapidly approaching and we’re so excited and thrilled to celebrate together – and with all of you!

Our 5th Anniversary

Annie to Jay

Wood

We were very fortunate to be married young with no pressure to start having children right away. This allowed us to ease into marriage and travel a lot together before we decided to fully settle down. On one of earlier trips to the beautiful island of St. John, we took a day trip across the British Virgin Islands where we found true paradise on Jost Van Dyke. We were told they filmed the iconic Corona commercials there! Jost is a small island with an incredible beach filled with waterfront bars and restaurants.

Jay spent the majority of the day at the famous Soggy Dollar Bar and mentioned on several occasions how he wanted us to move there! In front of Soggy, there’s a popular ring game where you try to land it on a hook. Jay played for literally hours! I didn’t mind though, it gave me some peace and quiet reading on the beach by myself!

To keep that memory alive for Jay, I ordered the wooden game online and had it installed in our backyard for our anniversary. Jay had so much fun entertaining friends and family over the years, although we unfortunately had to leave the game behind at our old house. I recently re-purchased another one, which he hasn’t hung up yet, but is looking forward to next summer when he can play with the kids!

Silverware

Now for silverware, which was more of a challenge. Jay is not much of a cook and I wasn’t going to buy him actual silverware. We unfortunately didn’t have a grill yet as we were living in a townhouse, so BBQ tools were also out. So I figured I’d return to the watch gift again after buying him one for each of our 1st and 3rd anniversaries. A new watch every other year seemed like a good idea to me!

The prior watches I bought for Jay were a bit dressier that looked great for work and events, but not so much for casual everyday wear. I found a silver Fossil watch that had a large face and would look great in any season and with any outfit. Jay loved adding another watch to his collection and display box I bought for him a few years prior. It may not have been silverware, but it was definitely silver… wear. (Jay wrote that joke. Painful, I know. LOL help me).

Jay to Annie

Wood

Similar to Annie’s story above, we loved to travel and explore new places. Ok, mainly the Caribbean islands, so not terribly “adventurous” but still fun! We honeymooned in Aruba and the island has always held special meaning to us ever since. On our honeymoon, our hotel arranged a private candlelit dinner on the beach for us which was so romantic. Annie took an incredible picture of our table and the Aruban sunset in the background.

When researching anniversary gift ideas, I came across Woodsnap, a company that printed pictures onto beautiful stained wood pallets. I uploaded our picture and within a few weeks an incredible 30” x 20” wood piece was delivered to our house with our favorite picture from our honeymoon engrained into the wood. It’s such a cool way to display a photo and has been hanging in our house ever since to remind us of that amazing trip together.

Silverware

The prior watches I bought for Jay were a bit dressier that looked great for work and events, but not so much for casual everyday wear. I found a silver Fossil watch that had a large face and would look great in any season and with any outfit. Jay loved adding another watch to his collection and display box I bought for him a few years prior. It may not have been silverware, but it was definitely silver… wear. (Jay wrote that joke. Painful, I know. LOL help me).

Our 10th Anniversary

Jay to Annie

Aluminum/Tin

We moved into our forever home during the summer before our 10th anniversary. We had much to unpack and organize and were looking forward to being able to host parties, holidays and casual BBQs in our new backyard. What had been missing all these years, besides a big backyard, was the proper hosting supplies.

Knowing that we had our first spring and full summer in our house coming up in a few months, I figured I could loosely translate the meaning of the aluminum/tin anniversary gift into something we could use when having people over. I found a large hammered aluminum beverage tub that would be perfect for displaying and keeping drinks cold at our next event. It fit nicely on our deck and has gotten a ton of use over the last five years.

Annie to Jay

Aluminum/Tin

15 years together and 10 years married at this point and we most certainly shared the same brain! Over the years we accumulated a few cheap coolers that we barely used given we didn’t have the space to host in our past homes. At the time, YETI was becoming this massive brand and everybody we knew seemed to have one. I know Jay was envious of his friends who had more space to have people over or travel more frequently to the beach or park. So now that we had the room and planned on hosting larger parties more frequently, I decided now would be the time to finally upgrade.

And since the anniversary gift category was aluminum/tin, I figured a cooler would be the perfect adjacent gift since Jay would fill it with aluminum cans! He loved the cooler and it has often gone with us to the beach or town pool and been the center of many backyard BBQs.

Together

Diamond

A few months before our anniversary we started talking about the Diamond anniversary gift. Annie acknowledged she really didn’t need any expensive jewelry and what could Jay possibly want in this category. Whenever we spend a lot of money, we want to make sure it’s an important experience or meaningful gift. Rather than struggling to find gifts for each other this year, we decided to make this milestone anniversary extra special just for us.

Earlier in our marriage, we had bought into a timeshare program called Diamond Resorts. And we had always dreamed about going back to Aruba after we had such an incredible time on our honeymoon. So we started to lay the groundwork for grandparents and family to help us take care of the kids while we took a kid-free anniversary vacation! And because our timeshare company was Diamond Resorts, it worked perfectly for the gift category!

We booked a 5 day trip on the island because we couldn’t be away from our kids for too long. But we needed this trip SO much. It gave us some time to decompress from our normal daily busy lives and reconnect as a couple. Thankfully on our honeymoon we saw most of the amazing sites on Aruba, so this trip was spent fully lounging by the pool, swimming in the beautiful turquoise ocean, and romantic dinners just the two of us.

It was the perfect way to celebrate our 10th anniversary together. Gifts, of course, are always appreciated when they’re special and meaningful. And that’s exactly how we feel about experiences as well. Spending that week together allowed us to refresh our relationship and return to our family well-rested and ready to take on the next five years and forever together.

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!

We are racing towards our big day while trying to put the finishing touches on our kids’ Christmas gifts. Stay tuned for our next post on December 27th!