1. Go Back in Time
Ever wish you could relive your wedding day (only every day, right)? You can. Sort of. Go back in time and revisit the place where you said your vows. If you got married at a hotel, book a room for the evening. You can even ask for the bridal suite if there are no weddings booked. If you got married at a restaurant, go back for dinner and possibly even order items that were served at your wedding. Be sure to indulge in dessert, too, or head back home to have the top tier of your wedding cake if you've saved it.
2. Eat Your Wedding Cake in the Most Romantic Spot
It's tradition to eat the top layer of your wedding cake on your first anniversary. Take that custom to the next level by finding the most romantic local spot you can think of to have your cake. Whether it's a moonlit beach or the park where you met, make it extra special by finding a place that means something to you.
3. Take a Second Honeymoon
Time flies when you're having fun. But if the rest, relaxation, and bliss of your honeymoon feel oh-so far away—get out of town. Literally. It doesn't have to be as grandiose as your honeymoon (but it totally can be); it just has to be time spent together and away, making memories as you kick off your second year of marriage and the rest of your lives together.
4. Get Glam and Have a Night Out on the Town
Chances are the last time you had your hair or makeup professionally done was your wedding day. (If not, we're jealous.) So, treat yourself and glam it up for the night. Make reservations at a fancy restaurant or buy tickets to a show for the perfect excuse (not that you need one) to look your best for a night on the town.
5. The Ultimate Night In
We're not talking the usual Friday night in with popcorn and wine. Think more along the lines of a luxurious and relaxing in-home massage treatment (services like Zeel will bring the spa to you), sexy lingerie, candles, music, and more. Ditch your usual takeout options and cook up your favorite meal together, or order in from your favorite upscale restaurant. You won't need to leave the house (or the bedroom) for an anniversary to remember.
6. Treat Yourself
Once your wallets have recovered from all the costs associated with wedding planning, treat yourselves to something special to help commemorate your anniversary. It can be a right-hand ring for you and the latest tech gadget or something you can purchase together that will last forever, like a piece of art or an antique. This just might be the first time since you got married that you treat yourselves so relish the experience and know that you're worth it.
7. Get a Set of Couples Tattoos
Have you been considering getting couples tattoos? Your first anniversary is the perfect occasion to get matching ink. Choose tattoos of anything that means something special to the two of you.
Document your anniversaries.
Say I love you with the perfect anniversary gift for your lifelong best friend. This scrapbook layout works best if you're a bit of a love-hoarder. Do you keep the ticket stubs from your anniversary movie dates? The handmade cards from your Valentine’s Day gifts? If so, with this theme, you'll simply make a page for each year of your lives together, displaying the mementos that you have from that anniversary celebration.
We are going to leave the details of this one all up to you. You can make a theme and color scheme for each page, based on the contents. You could also pick a color theme, say black and gold, for your entire album and keep it consistent all the way through. It’s up to you!
We love this premade, wooden anniversary scrapbook from Etsy. Not only does it have lined pages to contain your meaningful messages to your love, but it also looks great displayed in your home! If you love a good vintage look, this embellishment pack is adorable!
Compile your love notes.
If you and your significant other are note writers, consider compiling your favorite love letters to each other. It’s important to preserve these precious letters, so you'll want to photocopy them onto acid-free paper. You could also just laminate them and use the actual letter in your album. The good thing about photocopies is that you can make them smaller to fit in your template better!
Create an old-school photo album.
We all have thousands of photos on our phones, but what are you ever going to do with them? One of the most romantic scrapbooking ideas is to compile your favorite photos into an album that you can both look back at together and remember your favorite memories.
Canva is a free online design platform where you can create photo collages and print high-quality versions. Upload all the pics from your phone into one of their pre-made layouts, and print them for your scrapbook album. It’s user-friendly, and Canva has so many beautiful layout ideas!
If you want to create your album virtually instead, hop onto Shutterfly or Snapfish and upload your favorite pics. You can design it all yourself or use one of their pre-designed books. Once you have it the way you want it, they will print a professional photo album and ship it to you! They are made by you but look completely professional. It’s the best of both worlds.
Record your adventures.
If you and your partner are explorers, then an adventure book is the perfect idea to document your love. It also makes a great birthday gift for your loved one!
Oooh… you could also give it to them as a wedding gift! Yeah, do that. That’s the best gift we can think of!
This adorable book from Etsy is perfect for documenting your trips together. Fill its pages with these beautiful map layouts. They are fully customizable and will make it easy for you to keep track of all your most excellent adventures together!
Memorialize your wedding.
Many couples now have professional photo albums made into scrapbooks for their wedding, but if your wedding was a bit too early for this trend, you can make a handmade wedding scrapbook instead. Dust off those old photos and relive the best day of your lives. This leather-bound monogrammed album is a good place to start.
Celebrate what you love.
Are you guys foodies? Do you love baseball games? Collect Harry Potter memorabilia? Whatever that thing is that you do together, make an album totally devoted to your hobby!
Dedicate a page or a whole book to your most romantic date.
What's the one date you really remember? Is there a particular one that sticks in your mind-that moment in time when you knew that your partner was the one? Document your best date together with this romantic layout. Make sure to write a few lines on why you loved this date so much and what you felt that night.
Chronicle a year of dates.
For a great one-year anniversary gift, compile a book of all your favorite dates over your year of dating. The web is filled with scrapbook page ideas detailing your first date. Pick a theme you like and go with it, tracking your dates in chronological order up to your first anniversary. This incredibly charming gesture is not only a great gift, but if your love continues for years to come, you will be able to look back at your first year together and remember all the little moments when you first fell in love.
Count the days.
Another way to document your days together is to do a countdown scrapbook. Each page will stand for a day, month, or year that you have been together. "On this day, we have been together 6,000 days,” or whatever. You get the point. Either do one page a month (or year) or do calculations on special occasions like Valentine’s Day or birthdays.
We love this idea because it really puts into perspective how much time you have spent as a couple. It’s adorable, and it's easy. For couples who have been together a long time, you will definitely want to document in years, but if you're just getting together, you can calculate how many seconds you have spent with your bae if you want! Just makes sure to document the date with your calculation so that it makes sense when you flip through it later.
Get nostalgic.
Document all the things that make your love unique. Make a page for your special song. Design a page for your favorite love quotes. Do you have a movie that you return to over and over, make a page documenting what makes it "your movie." Every love is different and special and deserves to be preserved!
Plan for the future.
You can make your scrapbook something of a dream board if you want. Cut out pictures of the living room you want. Make a page full of possible baby names. Know what house you want to build? Clip the blueprints and build a page around that. Drop stickers of all the bucket list items you want to see in your travels and write a few notes to your future selves. It will be interesting to look back in several years and see which parts came true, and what things you can’t believe you ever wanted in the first place!
Write a daily note.
Construct a scrapbook that is really a colorful journal. You don’t need a full page a day for this one, but a corner will do. Grab a cute template with lots of squares like this one, and jot down a quick note each day about your love. Every day might not contain the nicest note, and that's okay. If you’re mad, write that. If you had a great dinner, write that. Whatever happened today, just jot it down. It’s a quick and easy way to document your love and before you know it, you'll have years of your life written in one place to share with your grandkids!
Preserve texts.
The only hard thing about this one will be fishing through all the day-to-day stuff to find those mushy texts. You probably aren’t going to want to preserve your grocery lists or what time the soccer game is, so it may take some sifting. You may want to start starring or taking screenshots of your favorite texts from here on out so you don’t have to go digging.
Take notes on enduring your long-distance romance.
If you and your boo are a long-distance couple, make a scrapbook page with a map that includes both of your locations. Mark each location with a heart or whatever icon sticker you want. Then, document how far apart you are in several different methods. For instance, "3,000 miles," "57,666 steps," or "a 20-hour bike ride." Think of some crazy things, like how long it would take to roller skate to each other or how many sticks of gum you would need to line up to get to each other. Go crazy with it!
Don’t forget the pooch!
Our pets are a giant part of our lives and are present for all our little special moments. If you and your partner have a furry family member, create a page that details how you got them, what you love about them, and the date they came into your life. Add a page for their birthday every year with some of your favorite memories of them.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."
A simple but sweet scrapbook idea is listing things you love about your partner. You could do several on one page, or make a whole scrapbook devoted to reasons you love them. We have seen these written in more of a cartoon book form and given as gifts as well. You can create one of these online at the Book of Us if you want a professional, bound book.
Celebrate the fruits of your labor
If you and your partner have children together, then they are probably the most important part of your relationship. They are literally the culmination of you joining your lives together. Document your best gifts with a page all their own, dedicated to their birth. Write down all the baby details and include a pic of you and your SO on the day you got your bundle of joy!
Inspire yourselves with a bucket list!
If you and your partner are goal setters, then make a page in your scrapbook for all the benchmarks you're aiming at! Leave room for checking them off and writing a few details when you complete them. This is a great way to keep up with all the things you have achieved together and keep yourselves looking forward to all the journeys ahead.
Remember who you are as individuals.
Dedicate a page in your love scrapbook to each of you as an individual. You can include baby pics, hobbies, employment, education, or anything that makes you who you are. It's the merging of two distinct individuals that makes your relationship a success, so take a page to celebrate your individual awesomeness!
Get a bit racy!
Did you join the mile-high club? Hook up on the beach at night or do the naughty in a memorable spot. This is your personal scrapbook, document that stuff! Create a page on your erm… "favorite memory." How detailed you get is totally up to you, but whatever you document, it will be fun to look back on later.
Savor sweet moments.
Take a page or two and jot down all the most endearing things your partner has ever done for you. This is creative sure, but it’s also a good therapeutic exercise. Writing down all the good things your partner does will help you remember why you love them so much, a good reminder for those days when you really just want to strangle them. We all have those days!
Make a different kind of honey-do list.
Every relationship has things that could be better, and healthy couples tackle problems head-on together. Get with your partner and make a list of a few things that you want to work on. Make it official with a page in your book. This will allow you to see it every time you open your scrapbook to add a page, reminding yourself to do better! This is another one of those things that's fun to look back on years later and remember the evolution of your relationship with all its hardships and epic accomplishments.
Document your special timeline.
Map out the important dates of your lives together on an old-school timeline. Timelines are a wonderful way to see the big picture all at once. Start with the day you met or your first date. Move along from there documenting your first trip together, your wedding date, and the day you adopted your pup. Whatever is important to you, slap it on the line. Make sure to leave room for future big events.
Share selfies.
You likely have loads of selfies with your SO, doing absolutely nothing special. These pics are often humorous and detail the everyday awesome moments of life together. Collect your favorite photos of the two of you and slap them together in a collage or nothingness.
Tell your love story!
Take a page in your scrapbook and write the story of your love. Everyone’s favorite love story is their own, right? Jot down all the details of your lives together and how they came to be. You don’t have to be a great writer. No one will ever see it unless you want them to. On second thought, it would be pretty special to share it with your kids and grandkids someday!
Closing Thoughts
If you need a few new activity ideas for that "Celebrate What You Love" scrapbook page, check "The Best Hobbies For Couples To Do Together." It’s filled with fun and exciting adventures we are sure the two of your will love!
Frequently Asked Questions
What do you put in a couple’s scrapbook?
Scrapbook ideas for couples include pages dedicated to your first date, a collection of your love notes, things you love about your partner, and mementos from your favorite outings together.
How do you start a relationship scrapbook?
How do you document your relationship?
1-Year Anniversary Gifts for a Girlfriend
Dating can be both exciting and terrifying. It’s never been easy to find that special someone who just seems to get you and who fills your life with joy. It’s even tougher in this age of unparalleled connectivity when dating apps bombard you with so many choices that you can become overwhelmed. So if you’ve managed to connect with someone truly special and you’re coming up on a year of dating, it’s definitely worth celebrating – and that means finding the perfect 1-year anniversary gifts for a girlfriend is essential.
How can you show that special someone how much she means to you? Here are some cute anniversary ideas for a girlfriend that will help to ensure one year turns into two, and more.
• Personalized Etched Bottle of Wine
• Funny Coffee Mug, “Keep That Sh*t Up”
• Big Blanket – World's Largest Blanket
• Personalized Cartoon Portrait
• Create Your Own Reel Viewer with Memories
• Funny Personalized Anniversary Socks
• Personalized Puzzle
• The Adventure Challenge for Couples
• Personalized Light Box
• Wooden 3D World Map with Push Pins
• Personalized Make a Mixtape
• Ultimate Journeys for Two: Extraordinary Destinations on Every Continent
• Champagne Toppers for Mimosas
• Variety Gift of the Month Club
• Personalized “Reasons Why I Love You” Wooden Puzzle
• Romantic Adventure Experience Together
• TheraBox Subscription
• What I Love About You – Fill in the Blanks Book of Love
• Personalized Night Sky When We Met
• Treasure Chest of Fun
• Personalized Prince and Princess Portrait
• Bucket List Journal
• Couples Bucket List
• Exotic Truffles by Vosges Chocolate
• Personalized Folded Book
• "I Love You and Your Butt is Perfect" Candle
• Personalized Capsule Letters in a Bottle
Personalized Etched Bottle of Wine
You really can’t go wrong with a crisp Pinot Grigio, a fruity Zinfandel, or a full-bodied Syrah to celebrate the day you first met, but if you’re looking to take your grape-derived anniversary gifts for your girlfriend to the next level, a personalized etched wine bottle is sure to impress.
Label it with the date of your first encounter, both of your names, or a sentimental phrase like "True Love," and you’ll melt her heart.