Weddingbee Blog

As I mentioned last time, Mr Lightning and I are celebrating our first year of marriage this weekend. Times have been a bit tough of late and it resulted in us having to forgo any fancy anniversary celebrations. But it is this exact predicament that formed the basis of my sentimental first anniversary gift.

We all know the first anniversary is paper, but I wanted to think outside the box for Mr Lightning.

At the beginning of the year I visited a local secondhand bookshop to source vintage graphics for a project I was working on. While there I stumbled upon a small blue book titled The Making of Modern Egypt. This immediately struck me as a great gift for Mr Lightning as an ode to our wonderful Egyptian honeymoon. I’ve hidden this little book from him ever since.

Many months went by before I started really putting the gift together. Our honeymoon was the first time we’d traveled together and we’ve been dreaming of our next trip ever since. After the realisation that we would be staying at home for our first anniversary, I decided to collect a few items inspired by the places we’re saving to go to. While we ended up going to Egypt, a Paris and London honeymoon was high on our list for a very long time. Since we didn’t make it the first time, we’ve bookmarked them for our next journey.

To capture the essence of this dream trip, I sourced a copy of the London underground and two vintage Paris graphics. I enlarged the map of the underground into an A3, and had it printed and folded it to look like a real map. With the two Paris graphics I made fake postcards, on the back of which I wrote the lyrics of two songs that were used on our wedding day. To complete the collection I rummaged around at my parents’ house for an old French phrase book we’ve had for as long as I can remember. It’s been scribbled on throughout, but I love that it comes from my family library and has a little history to it.

While I’ve been to both cities for short visits and Mr Lightning spent a few months in London himself a few years ago, we love the romance and allure of these great destinations and can’t wait to visit them together.

To finish off my gift to Mr Lightning I made a passport-style card. Instead of using the South African coat of arms which appears on his actual passport, I used the same vintage emblem from our wedding invitations. It was just another small touch from our wedding day.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to give a gift to someone and I think this truly shows how great a handmade gift can be. In the end it probably cost me about $4 (R30) for the book and the prints, as I already owned the French phrasebook.

We may not being going anywhere special this weekend, but I’m really looking forward to spending a quiet weekend together in our beloved cottage, dreaming about macarons from Laduree and the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street.

Did you/do you plan to adhere to the paper tradition for your first anniversary? What creative paper gifts have you come up with?