Anniversary ideas for every milestone

1. Send a message before they wake up that names one thing you loved this month.5 min · Free · Keep it to two lines. Some couples race each other to say it first.
2. Cook the dish one of you ordered on your first date.60 min · Low cost · If it was takeout, recreate it badly on purpose and score it together.
3. Swap a list of five small things you noticed about each other.20 min · Free · Be specific: the way they text, a song they hum. Read the lists out loud.
4. Decide together which milestones you'll celebrate from here.15 min · Free · Every month, or 3, 6 and 12 months. Saying it now saves one of you from feeling let down later.
5. Go back to your first date spot and order the same thing.90 min · Low cost · Take one photo there. You'll want it at one year.
6. Start a memory box with this month's tickets, notes and photos.20 min · Low cost · A shoebox works. Add one thing every month.
7. Make a shared playlist of the songs from your first month.30 min · Free · Each of you adds three songs and says why one of them made the list.
8. Try something neither of you has done before.2 h · Low cost · A cuisine, a trail or a free class you've both wanted to try.

1. Fill a jar with 100 short reasons you like them, one per paper strip.60 min · Low cost · Write ten a day in the ten days before. Short is fine: "you laugh at my worst jokes".
2. Swap one small gift each, with a note about what changed in 100 days.30 min · Low cost · Agree on a budget first so neither gift outshines the other.
3. Take a photo in a spot and pose you'll repeat at every milestone.20 min · Free · Same place, same pose. Years later you can line them up side by side.
4. Scroll back to your first messages and read them out loud.30 min · Free · Each of you picks the most awkward one.
5. Cook a three-course dinner: one course each, dessert together.2 h · Low cost · Keep your course a secret until you serve it.
6. Take a day trip to a town an hour away.8 h · Low cost · Let each of you pick one stop the other doesn't know about.
7. Write each other a letter to open on your first anniversary.30 min · Free · Seal it, write the date on the envelope and put the day in your calendar.
8. Play a "how well do you know me" quiz and see who knows whom better.20 min · Free · Loser plans the next date.

1. Recreate your first date, down to the outfits.2 h · Low cost · One couple on Reddit wears the same tops every anniversary as on the day they got together.
2. Have a half-year talk: best moment, hardest moment, one thing to try next.30 min · Free · Some couples pair every monthsary with a short check-in. Keep it kind and short.
3. Book a class neither of you is good at: pottery, dancing, climbing.2 h · Pricier · Pick one you'd both be beginners at.
4. Print the best photos of your first six months.60 min · Low cost · Put them on the fridge, where you'll both see them.
5. Give each other a plan instead of a thing: tickets, a lesson, a picnic.30 min · Pricier · Write the date on the card.
6. Watch the sunrise together with coffee from home.60 min · Free · Pack it the night before so you don't miss it.
7. Each of you plans half the day and keeps it secret.8 h · Low cost · The morning is yours, the afternoon is theirs. Reveal each half when it starts.
8. Write down six things you want to do together in the next six months.30 min · Free · Keep them on a shared bucket list so they don't get lost.

1. Go back to where you met and tell each other what you thought that day.60 min · Free · Be honest about the first impression.
2. Spend a night away somewhere neither of you has been.24 h · Pricier · An hour's drive is enough.
3. Give a paper gift, the traditional first-year present.60 min · Low cost · A letter, a print of the map where you met, a book with notes in the margins.
4. Make a slideshow of your year in 12 photos, one per month.90 min · Free · Watch it together and tell the story behind each one.
5. Host a dinner for the friends who knew you at the start.3 h · Low cost · Ask each of them for one story from your first weeks.
6. Plant something that grows with you.60 min · Low cost · A small tree or a pot of herbs. Cheap, and still there next year.
7. Open the letters you wrote at 100 days.20 min · Free · No letters? Write them now and open them next year.
8. Pack a picnic with the food from your best date this year.2 h · Low cost · Bring a blanket and the playlist from your first month.

1. Keep one tradition that comes back every year: the same restaurant, photo or toast.2 h · Low cost · Keep it small enough to repeat in a year when money is tight.
2. Trade letters about the year: what you're proud of in them, what you want next.45 min · Free · Keep the letters in the memory box.
3. Pick a gift from the traditional list for that year.60 min · Low cost · Cotton for 2, leather for 3, wood for 5. A theme makes shopping easier.
4. Play tourist in your own city for a day.4 h · Free · A museum, a walk you've never done, a market. Some library cards and banks get you into museums for free.
5. Go through the memory box together and add this year.45 min · Free · Pick one thing each that you'd save in a fire.
6. Cook the meal from your wedding or your first anniversary.90 min · Low cost · Can't get the recipe? Guess, and laugh at the result.
7. Book next year's anniversary trip during this one.30 min · Pricier · A date on the calendar gives you a year to look forward to it.
8. A broke-year anniversary: candles, dinner on the floor and cards you make yourselves.90 min · Free · One couple on Reddit picked cards in a shop, read them to each other and put them back. It still counted.

1. Send a care package to open together on a video call.60 min · Low cost · A handwritten card, their favorite snack, something soft. Some couples save bigger gifts for birthdays.
2. Cook the same recipe together on video, start to finish.90 min · Low cost · Agree on the recipe and shopping list a few days before.
3. Mail a handwritten letter so it arrives on the day.30 min · Low cost · Post across borders can take weeks. Send it early and write "open on" with the date.
4. Record one voice note for every month you've been together.45 min · Free · One memory per note. Send them all at once or one every hour on the day.
5. Book your next visit together on the anniversary call.30 min · Pricier · Then you both have a date to count down to.
6. Get good at the game they love, then play it together.2 h · Free · One commenter on Reddit practiced their partner's favorite game for weeks first.
7. Order flowers or a dessert from a shop near them.15 min · Pricier · Ask a local friend for a shop they'd like, or pick one with good reviews.
8. Open the place where you met on a map and tell the story of that day.30 min · Free · Each tells it from their side. The details won't match.

The monthly anniversary of the day you got together. In the Philippines it's called a monthsary. Many couples mark the first few months and switch to once a year after that.

There's no rule. A message or a slightly nicer dinner is enough for a month. Talk about it before the date, so you both expect the same thing.

Couples in Korea swap small gifts on day 100. A jar of 100 reasons, a letter to open at one year or a photo you'll repeat at every milestone also work. The love counter shows your exact 100th day.

A picnic with the food from your first date, letters to each other, a playlist of your songs, or a sunrise with coffee from home. Turn on the Free filter above to see only free ideas.

Paper, in the US list of wedding anniversary gifts. Cotton is the second, leather the third and wood the fifth. Couples who aren't married often borrow the list for dating anniversaries too.

Yes. Phorb, a couples app for iPhone, has a Countdown widget to your next anniversary, a Days Together widget for the Home Screen, Lock Screen and Apple Watch, and a shared calendar with reminders on both phones. It runs in 10 languages.

Your shortlist stays in this browser. Phorb doesn't see which ideas you saved.