What to Buy Him for a One Year Anniversary

The traditional gift for a first anniversary is paper. Which is charming, and completely useless if you are trying to give him something he will still have in ten years.

The modern list says clocks. That is not much better.

What most people actually want at one year is the same thing: something small enough not to be a statement, permanent enough to mean something, and specific enough that it could only have come from you.

Why jewellery works at one year and not at three months

Three months is too early — a piece of jewellery reads as heavy. Five years and you have usually moved on to bigger things. One year sits in the window where it lands right: long enough that it is not presumptuous, early enough that it still feels like a marker rather than a habit.

The other reason is practical. At one year you know things about him you did not know at the start. You know whether he wears a watch. You know if he takes his ring off at the gym. You know whether he would wear something under a shirt or over a t-shirt. That knowledge is what makes the difference between a gift and a good gift.

What to actually buy

If he wears nothing at all. Start with a plain chain, no pendant. A 55cm Cuban link in steel is about as neutral as jewellery gets. It reads as considered rather than decorative, and it does not commit him to a look.

If he already wears something. Do not replace it. Add to it, or give him a second option for a different context — something heavier for weekends if what he wears daily is fine.

If he is hard on his things. 316L stainless steel, not silver. Silver tarnishes, scratches, and needs polishing. Steel does not care about sweat, chlorine or salt water, and it will look the same in five years.

If you want it to be unmistakably from you. Have it engraved. Which brings us to the part people get wrong.

What to have engraved

The instinct is to engrave a message. Resist it. Engraving surfaces are small — often 20mm or less — and a sentence rendered at that size is illegible and looks cluttered.

What works, in rough order of how well it ages:

• A date. The date you met, not the date you are giving it. 12.09.24 reads cleanly and means nothing to anyone but the two of you.
• Initials. Yours, his, or both. Two or four characters, always legible.
• One word. Something you actually say to each other. Not a quote you found.
• Coordinates. Where you met, or where you live. Divisive — some people love it, some find it fussy.

What does not work: song lyrics, anything longer than about nine characters on a small surface, and inside jokes that will not survive contact with a decade.

Two practical things

First, get the sizing right before you engrave. Engraved pieces are made to your text and cannot be exchanged for a different length afterwards. Read our guide to guessing his chain length first — it takes two minutes.

Second, order earlier than you think you need to. Engraving is cut during production rather than added at the end, so an engraved piece takes longer to reach you than a plain one. The delivery estimate on each product page accounts for that, and it is shown before you pay rather than after.

And the paper

If you want to keep the tradition, write him something and put it in with the piece. Every order of ours goes out with a cotton card printed with your message, at no charge, which is as close to paper as we get.