An anniversary is the one date in the year that belongs to two people and nobody else, which is exactly what makes it awkward to write for. There is no audience to pitch the tone at, no running order, and the phrase that arrives first is usually the least useful thing you could say. What you actually need depends on where the two of you are: the paper anniversary, when the whole arrangement is still new; ten years in, when there is rather a lot to sum up and no obvious way to do it; a partner you have never married but have been with longer than most married people you know; a day that has to be marked from two different postcodes. The wishes below are sorted by those situations rather than by the names of the years, so you can go straight to the one that is yours — short lines for a card, a few sentences to say out loud with nobody else in the room, and something to send at eleven in the morning when you are both at work and the day is getting away from you.
Short lines to write in a card
A year on, and I would still choose exactly the same thing. Here is to us, quietly.
Happy anniversary. Nothing grand planned this evening, which rather suits us both.
For our day: the same decision, no hesitation, and any time you like.
Thank you for this year. We both know it was not the easy one, and here we are.
To the person I would still pick out of a crowded room. Ours again today.
Another year of you leaving every cupboard door open. I would not change a thing.
Here is to the two of us — unremarkable, steady, and going on for a good while yet.
Happy anniversary. You have been the best part of a fairly ordinary year.
One more year down, and I am still glad you are the one at the other end of the sofa.
Our day comes round again. Thank you for making the other three hundred bearable.
I would sign the whole thing again this afternoon, without reading the small print.
To us. Much the same as ever, and long may that be the case.
The first anniversary: paper, and everything still new
One year in, and paper feels about right, because almost everything we own together is still a document. The rest of it — the part I actually married you for — turned up somewhere around month four and has not left since. Here is to the second year, at the same steady pace.
A year ago today we were both far more nervous than either of us admitted at the time. Since then we have carried a sofa up a staircase it did not fit, worked out which of us handles the bank and which handles the boiler, and learnt how to have a row that goes nowhere. I would do all of it again.
They say the first year is the hardest. Ours was mainly the loudest — boxes everywhere, a kitchen assembled twice and one very long argument about a shelf. Thank you for staying calm throughout. To the next one, ideally a little quieter.
Paper for the first year, which is fitting, since most of what we have built so far exists as forms in a drawer. What does not is the bit where you make tea without being asked and put it down on my side of the desk. That is the part I intend to keep.
Happy anniversary. A year married and I have stopped noticing the ring, which people warned me about and which turns out to be a good sign: it means the whole thing has settled in rather than worn off.
Twelve months, and what I did not expect is how ordinary it feels in the best sense. No adjustment, no learning curve, just the same person across the table on a Wednesday evening. To our first, and to a great many unremarkable Wednesdays.
One year on from a day I remember mostly in fragments: somebody’s speech overrunning, the rain that stopped just in time, and you looking faintly stunned in the doorway. I have a clearer view of it now, and it still looks like the right call.
Ten years in
Ten years, and the honest summary is that hardly any of it was dramatic. We paid things off, had one holiday we still talk about, and got very good at knowing when to leave each other alone. That last one is worth more than it sounds.
A decade in, and I have stopped keeping score of who does what, which I suspect is the actual milestone. Tin for ten, apparently — unglamorous, hard-wearing and not a bad description of the pair of us.
Ten years ago I could have listed what I liked about you in one sentence. It would take considerably longer now, and most of it would sound dull to anybody else: the way you handle bad news, the way you are with your mother, the fact that you have never once made me feel like an inconvenience.
Happy anniversary — ten of them now. We have had a bad year in there and a very good one, and the useful discovery is that you are the same person in both. Here is to the next ten, at whatever speed they turn up.
A decade, and the house is full of things neither of us can throw out because of where we bought them. That is what ten years actually looks like: not a highlight reel, just a lot of small objects with stories attached. Thank you for all of it.
Ten years married, and I notice it mostly in the shorthand — half a sentence from you and I have the rest. To another ten of not having to explain myself to anyone.
The trouble with ten years is that everybody expects something profound and I have not got it. Only this: I would do the whole lot again, including the parts I complained about at the time.
For a partner you are not married to
No wedding, no certificate, and a date we picked ourselves, which makes it more ours if anything. Here is to the anniversary nobody else organised for us.
We have never done the paperwork and I have never once minded. Whatever this is, it has outlasted several marriages we were both invited to. To us, and to the day we decided to count.
Anniversaries are simpler when you chose the date yourselves: no registry office, no argument about which one is official, just the evening we both agreed something had started. Thank you for every year since.
Happy anniversary — ours, unofficially. People occasionally ask when we are going to make it official, and I have never had a decent answer, because it has felt entirely official since roughly the second month.
To the person I share everything with except a surname. It has never once seemed like the missing piece, and today least of all.
We got the important part right and skipped the ceremony, which on balance saved a great many people a difficult Saturday. Here is to another year of the arrangement, whatever we are calling it.
Some years we mark it properly and some years we notice halfway through the evening. Either way the date sits in my head permanently. Thank you for the last one. It was a good one.
When you are apart on the day
Wrong country, right date. Here is to us from a considerable distance, and I will say the rest of it properly when I am home.
Not how either of us would have planned it, but the day counts whether or not we are in the same room. Thinking about you for the whole of today.
Happy anniversary from the other end of a bad phone line. Keep an evening free next week and we will do it properly.
I have been working out the time difference all morning so that this arrived at something like a reasonable hour. Our day, and I am sorry I am not there for it.
A card in the post is a poor substitute for being in the room and it is what I have got. Read it this evening with something decent in a glass, and I will be back before the week is out.
Being apart on the day is annoying rather than sad, which I take as a good sign about us. To the years so far, and to being in the same postcode for the next one.
You are asleep as I write this and awake by the time you read it, which has been the shape of the last month. Our anniversary regardless. It is the ordinary bits I miss.
Same date, different rooms, no less true for it. Thank you for the year — I will thank you again in person and at greater length.
What to say out loud, with nobody else in the room
I am going to say something now, even though there are only two of us here and you will be embarrassed. Some years ago I said yes without entirely knowing what I was agreeing to, and it remains the best decision I have made. To us, and to a good year.
Two sentences before this goes cold. We have managed rather more than we set out to, and you carried most of it without mentioning it once. Thank you for that. To your health, and to ours.
Allow me one moment of being sincere and then we will go back to normal. What I value in this is the quiet: I have never had to explain myself to you, not once. To the next stretch of it.
I will keep it short, since you are better at that than I am. A number of years ago we told each other we would see this through together, and we have, both of us. To the day, and to you.
Quickly, before we pour these. You are the only person I can be in a thoroughly foul mood in front of without having to apologise for it afterwards. That is worth more than any evening out.
One thing and then we will eat. Somebody asked me recently what the secret is and I said there is not one, which is true. It is mostly turning up, and you have turned up every time. To the pair of us.
A message to send during the day
Morning. Today, some years ago, we were both considerably more nervous than we are now. See you tonight.
I know you are in back-to-back meetings, so briefly: happy anniversary. Longer version this evening.
Do not think about work after six. I have sorted the evening out. Nothing elaborate, but it is ours.
In case it has gone out of your head between emails: it is our anniversary. I would forgive you anyway.
One more year of you, and I would put my name to it again this afternoon. Come home early if you can.
From here to there: thank you for the last twelve months. Hard work in places, good on balance.
Two minutes between things. Thinking about you, and glad we did what we did. That is all.
No debate about dinner tonight. I am handling it, you simply turn up at a sensible hour.
Sending this now because I probably will not manage to say it out loud later: I am glad it is you.
Our day. Nothing whatsoever required of you except being through the door before it is dark.
Questions and answers
We are not married, so which date counts as our anniversary?
Whichever one you both recognise. Unmarried couples usually end up choosing between the first date, the day you agreed you were together and the day you moved in, and any of the three works as long as it is the same one every year. The practical test is not sentiment but memory: pick the date you are both certain of, because an anniversary that has to be looked up stops being marked within about three years. If the two of you genuinely remember different days, take the earlier one and stop negotiating. And you owe nobody an explanation for it — a date you chose yourselves is no less real than one arranged around a registry office’s diary.
Shop-bought cards already have a verse printed inside. Where do your own words go?
Underneath the printed verse, and keep them shorter than you think. The printed lines are doing the formal work — the greeting, the sentiment nobody needs to invent — so your part is the specific bit the manufacturer could not know: a reference to the year you have had, one thing you are thanking them for, and your name. Three or four lines is plenty. A full page competing with a printed rhyme reads as though you did not trust it. If you have more to say than that, buy a blank card and write the lot. What does not work is adding a second general sentiment of your own, because you then have the same thought twice on one page in two different voices.
It falls on an ordinary working weekday and we are both shattered. Is it poor form to move the celebration?
No, provided the date itself is acknowledged on the day. Move the meal, the evening out or the present to the weekend as much as you like, but say something on the actual date, even if it is only a message in the morning and a card left on the side. What partners tend to mind is not the absence of a celebration, it is the day passing unmarked. Splitting it also takes the pressure off a Tuesday nobody has the energy for: a rushed dinner where both of you keep checking the time is worse than a proper one three days later. Agree it in advance, though. A moved celebration is fine; a silently forgotten one is not.
Ten years in, how do you write something that is not simply a list of everything that has happened?
Pick one thing and go into it rather than covering the decade. A summary of ten years is always a list of moves, jobs and holidays, and it reads like a round-robin letter because that is what it is. What works is a single detail with weight behind it: how they were during one bad month, a habit of theirs you have come to rely on, something they say that you would miss. The years do the rest of the work by implication, since the reader already knows how long it has been and you do not have to prove it. If you want a number in there at all, put it in the first line and then leave it alone.
My partner would rather nothing about us went online. What do you do when everyone else marks the day publicly?
Treat it as a preference rather than a slight, and write to them instead of about them. A card, a letter or a long message covers everything a post would and reaches the only person it was meant for. If family will notice the absence, replying to somebody else’s message is usually enough to settle it. The mistake is posting anyway and apologising afterwards, or posting something deliberately vague as a compromise — both read as ignoring what was asked. It is also worth checking whether the objection is to all of it or only to the sentimental kind, because plenty of people mind the wording far more than the picture.