2 Year Anniversary Gift Ideas for Married Couples

After two years of marriage, it’s time to start looking for 2 year anniversary gifts! While the second wedding anniversary isn’t the most monumental, you should celebrate each year spent together.

Celebrating each anniversary with your spouse is a beautiful and meaningful tradition. It symbolizes how much time you’ve spent together and shows that your bond is everlasting. It also honors the day you tied the knot as a life-changing occasion. Anniversaries are best celebrated through romantic acts.

One of the best ways to celebrate your anniversary is to give your spouse a nice gift. However, buying for your spouse when you already have everything you need is super difficult. Thankfully, there are guides to anniversary gifts for each year of marriage. Keep reading for a bunch of 2nd anniversary gift ideas.

Second Anniversary Gift Traditions

Above, you can see that there are long-deemed traditional anniversary gifts based on how long you’ve been married. These traditions have been around for a very long time, so much so they were given a modern counterpart to bring things up to date. This means you can go with whatever one you’d like, or get a totally different gift.

This article gives year-by-year breakdowns of the gifts in even more detail! There are traditions going year-by-year until your 20th anniversary, and then it goes every 5 years until the final 60th anniversary, an accomplishment that few make.

The final anniversary gift for 60 years, is diamonds, FYI, so it might be worth holding out for!

 

Color and Gemstone Traditions Explained

Further, the jewelry industry decided to get in one the year-by-year gift trend by giving each anniversary a designated stone. This is likely because many husbands like to get their wives jewelry for an anniversary instead of the traditional or modern gifts, which are more like household items.

With that comes a traditional color that matches the gemstone. For example, the 11-year anniversary gemstone and color are turquoise and turquoise, respectively.

These generally correspond, though sometimes they don’t, so it’s worth doing your research. You can read more about gem anniversary gifts here.

The 2 year anniversary gemstone is garnet, or the color red if you opt for a non-gemstone gift!

 

2nd Anniversary Gifts and Ideas

All of that being said, you obviously don’t have to do anything related to the traditional gifts, modern gifts, gemstones, or colors if you don’t want to. Maybe your partner is desperately gunning for an air fryer– you should definitely get them something they really want before shopping around for obscure traditions. 

However, if you do want some ideas that go with the trends, you can keep reading for 2 year anniversary ideas for the traditional gift, the modern gift, the color, and the gemstone.

Traditional Second Anniversary Gift – Cotton

The traditional gift for the 2 year anniversary mark is cotton. This can manifest in many things, from household linens to personal clothing items. Thankfully, even though the traditional gifts can be a bit old fashioned, cotton goods are still easy to find and often organic.

The cotton is meant to symbolize the comfort of the home you have fostered over your first two years of marriage. It also shows how the threads of cotton represent your relationship, as you’ve grown more tightly bound over time. This beautiful material will mean a lot to your spouse.

Cotton Gift Ideas

One of the easiest places to start here is high-thread count cotton sheets that you can both enjoy! There are a lot of nice online retailers that sell organic and ethically sourced cotton sheets that are extra soft and will be a great addition to your marriage bed.

Similarly, you could get a cotton throw blanket for the two of you to cuddle up on the couch with, while you watch movies and spend time together. A cotton throw blanket is going to be extra soft and nice to breezy summer nights.

If your spouse is really in need of some R&R lately, you could get matching cotton bathrobes for an at-home spa day and some self care. Some cotton bathrobes are incredibly soft and comfy!

 

Getting Creative with Cotton

If all of these ideas sound a little too obvious, get creative with them. If your spouse loves interesting decor, you can pot some cotton stems for them to put out. This is especially effective if the two of you have a very rustic style home.

There’s also the option of getting them very high quality cotton clothes! Cotton clothes are leisurely, comfortable, and very stylish. For women, there is a wide selection of cotton dresses, and for men, many t-shirts and other items. There are also unisex cotton items, like sweatshirts and pants, shown here.

There is also cotton scented perfume, if you’d like to be really creative! This perfume is meant to have a fresh and clean smell, so if that sounds like something your spouse would like, this is a great option!

 

Modern Second Anniversary Gift – China

The modern spin on the 2-year cotton is the 2-year china. China refers to fancy dishes made of porcelain or other high-quality materials, as opposed to your standard dinnerware, which is generally ceramic or stoneware.

Like the cotton gifts, china symbolizes the household that you have built as a couple. Because it’s also extremely sensitive, it shows the care with which you need to maintain your relationship, as it will break if you act carelessly with it. However, china is still valuable, indicating the delicate strength your marriage holds.

 

China Gift Ideas

Obviously, the first place to start in giving china gifts is a great set of serving china. While a lot of sets of china are horridly old-fashioned and out of style, this one is clean, classy, and elegant. It’ll look perfect in your home.

Further, a fancy china teapot can bring out the inner old lady in anyone! This one is gorgeously painted and will charm any guest you have over for tea. It’s particularly great if your spouse is a vintage lover.

Similarly, there are items like these gorgeous bowls, which are intricately painted. These are great if you and your spouse eat a lot of fancy soups.

 

Getting Creative with China

If your partner loves decorative items, you can give them a large china vase with a bouquet of flowers. This is a lifelong item that can be used and reused time and time again.

Maybe your partner loves kitschy things like figurines and totems. Little china figurines like this one are well-known collectors items that sometimes resemble happy memories or loved ones!

For a little bit of humor, you could make a large purchase of a nice china cabinet for the household that has plenty of serving dishes. A china cabinet is perfect for filling some empty wall space and holding some extra stuff.

 

Red Gifts for a Two Year Anniversary

If neither of those things sound like your thing, you could always just take the wide route and get something red! Obviously, a ton of things come in red, so this really opens up your gift options within the realm of tradition.

Red is a color with a large range of symbolic meanings, from anger (seeing red) to luck and prosperity, especially in Chinese tradition. However, in this context, you might want red to symbolize the passion and emotion that exists within your marriage and relationship.

 

Red Gift Ideas

If you’re a couple that loves to travel, a red-hot set of luggage will have you off jet setting in a minute! This set is lovely and a bright, flaming red. You’ll never lose it in baggage, that’s for sure!

For something super practical, you could always try red exercise shoes! Maybe your spouse has been in a workout slump or maybe they’ve had the same smelly pair of running shoes since well before the two years you’ve been married.

If you two aren’t into pricey anniversary gifts, go for a nice bottle of red wine that you can share over a homemade dinner! Bonus points if you can find one with a red label.

 

Garnet Gemstone Gifts for a 2nd Anniversary

The last item on the standard two-year anniversary gift list is the garnet gemstone. Garnets come in a variety of colors, however, the red one is most often standard for the two-year anniversary, as it corresponds with the color.

Garnets have long been considered stones of love due to their fiery red color. However, outside of passionate connotations, they also symbolize the love of friendship, showing your spouse that your love is just as much about a mutual respect than it is about romance.

 

Garnet Gift Ideas

This absolutely incredible garnet ring is showy and perfect for a spouse that loves bling. It would look extra great on the right hand ring finger, just parallel the wedding rings.

For something a bit more low key, these earrings are stunning and a great way to show off how long you’ve been married in a subtle way. These are great for a bride with a bohemian or Earthy style of clothing.

For men, there are always these incredible garnet pomegranate cufflinks. Pomegranates symbolize vitality and fertility, so these a great gift if you are trying for a baby.

 

More About Anniversary Gifts

Here at Yeah Weddings, we have everything you need to know about anniversary gifts. From the first year to the fiftieth, keep reading for gift ideas for all of your anniversaries.