Anniversary wishes for your partner, family and friends, year by year

Most anniversaries are quiet. No party, no guests, often just dinner or a message first thing in the morning. That is exactly why people notice who remembered, and two honest lines count for more than a long printed verse.

The messages below are templates rather than finished cards. Anything in square brackets is a name, a place or a number of years to fill in, and the greeting follows the relationship: familiar for a partner and your own family, more formal for in-laws you still address by surname and for colleagues. Write Mum or Mom, Nan or Grandma, the way your family actually says it. For how a card hangs together from greeting to sign-off, the guide on what to write in a wedding card works for an anniversary just as well as for the wedding itself.

You can be more personal with your own partner than with anyone else. The messages below work as they stand, and every one of them gets better with a detail only the two of you would recognise.

Romantic and personal

• [Number] years, and I would ask you all over again today, only faster, because now I know what I could only guess back then. Happy anniversary, my love.
• You are the one person I never have to rehearse a sentence for. Thank you for another year beside you.
• We got married once. I've chosen you every day since, and it's never once been hard.
• The best part of this year wasn't the trip or the new kitchen. It was that I got to do all of it with you.
• Home is wherever you are, and you have given me [number] years of it. Thank you.
• I love you differently from the way I did on our wedding day: more quietly, more precisely and a great deal more deeply.
• You have seen every one of my bad days and never left me alone on a single one of them. Happy anniversary, darling.
• When I look back, you are in every good memory. When I look ahead, you are in all of those too.

With a wink

• Another year of laughing at my jokes, including the ones that weren't funny. That deserves dinner, and I'm paying.
• You're still the best decision I ever made. Narrowly ahead of the sofa.
• [Number] years of you stealing the covers, and I would still hand them over every single night.
• We disagree about the route, the dishwasher and the thermostat. On everything that matters we agree completely: we belong together.

After a hard year

• This year wasn't easy, and we carried it together anyway. I'm prouder of that than of anything else we've done.
• For the year ahead I wish us fewer worries, more evenings like the old ones, and that we keep holding on to each other the way we did this year.

From a distance

• We're not in the same place today, but we're in the same place where it counts. I'm counting the days until our belated celebration.

Wishes to parents and grandparents are mostly a thank-you. Anyone who grew up with a couple is congratulating them on more than a marriage: on everything that came out of it. With in-laws, the relationship decides whether you write warmly or a little more formally.

Parents

• Dear Mum and Dad, [number] years, and you still hold hands when you think nobody is looking. We're looking. Happy anniversary!
• Everything we know about sticking together, we learned from watching the two of you, not from any book. Thank you, and happy anniversary.
• Happy anniversary to you both! We wish you a year with plenty of time for each other, and children who call more often.
• You gave us a home that was built on your marriage. Today is a good day to thank you for both.
• Mum, Dad, take the evening off and celebrate yourselves for once. Dinner is on us, and the table is already booked.

In-laws

• Dear [first names], happy anniversary. Thank you for welcoming me into your family as if I had always been part of it.
• Dear Mr and Mrs [surname], on your wedding anniversary I send you both my warmest wishes for good health and many more happy years together.

Grandparents

• Dear Grandma and Grandpa, I don't know another couple who can sit in comfortable silence and then laugh together quite like you two. Happy anniversary!
• Without the two of you, none of this family would exist. Today we celebrate you, with cake if you will allow it.
• [Number] years married, and Grandpa still fetches Grandma's cardigan before she gets cold. There is a lot to learn from you both. Happy anniversary!
• Dear Nan and Grandad, thank you for the Sunday dinners, the stories and the example you have set. I wish you good health and many more years together.
• Sending you both the warmest wishes from [place] on your anniversary. I'm thinking of you especially today and looking forward to my next visit.
• Dear Grandma and Grandpa, I drew you a picture: the two of you in your garden. Happy anniversary, love from [name].

The last one is for small grandchildren writing with a parent's help; the drawing is the real present.

Friends are the easy ones, because nobody expects a speech. One line that shows you had the date in your head is enough, and the rest can be light, as long as the joke is aimed at both of them and never at one alone.

Friends

• Happy anniversary, you two! You're living proof that people can still let each other finish a sentence after [number] years.
• Here's to another year of the two of you, and to every evening we get to spend round your table. Lots of love!
• I still remember you two on the dance floor at your wedding. I hope you dance again tonight, even if it's only in the kitchen.
• Happy anniversary! We hope the year ahead treats you as well as you treat each other.
• You two make it easy to believe in marriage. Celebrate properly, and don't let anything distract you tonight, least of all the laundry.

Siblings

• Dear [sister's name] and [name], every year I'm a little more glad that you found each other. Happy anniversary!
• Happy anniversary, little brother. [Name] has put up with you for [number] years, which I think deserves flowers. For [Name], obviously.

Colleagues

• Dear [name], happy anniversary! The whole team hopes you and [partner's name] have a lovely evening and a head free of work.
• Warm congratulations on your wedding anniversary. We wish you and your family a lovely, uninterrupted day.
• Your inbox can wait. Happy anniversary, and enjoy a quiet evening with [name]; we'll hold the fort here.

Most years of marriage have a traditional name, and on the milestone years it is worth putting it in the card. The complete list is in the guide to wedding anniversary names by year. The British and American lists differ in places, so the messages below use only the names the two have in common.

First anniversary (paper)

• One year married, and our marriage certificate is still the best thing I've ever signed. Happy first anniversary, my love.
• Happy paper anniversary! The first chapter is written, and we can't wait to read the rest.
• One year in, and you still look exactly as happy as you do in the wedding photos. Happy first anniversary!

Ideas for marking the first year are collected in the article on the first wedding anniversary.

Fifth anniversary (wood)

• Five years: the sapling has become a young tree with its first rings. Happy wood anniversary!
• For your wood anniversary we wish you a warm home and a kitchen table with room for many more people around it.
• Five years with you, and I'd take every single one of them again exactly as it was. Here's to the next five.

What the wood stands for and which gifts suit it is covered on the page about the fifth wedding anniversary.

Tenth anniversary (tin)

• Ten years, and like good tin we've bent a little here and there without ever breaking. Happy tenth, my love.
• Congratulations on ten years! A whole decade together is something to be properly proud of.
• Happy tin anniversary! Ten years in, and still the couple everyone wants to sit next to at dinner.

Tin is the tenth in the traditional British list, and the American list pairs it with aluminium. More on the year is on the page about the tenth wedding anniversary.

Silver anniversary (25 years)

• Twenty-five years of marriage don't shine on their own; you've polished them a little every day. Happy silver anniversary!
• A quarter of a century side by side. Congratulations from all of us, and we can't wait to raise a glass with you.
• I'd marry you again after twenty-five years. Perhaps with fewer guests and better weather.

More messages, sorted by who is sending them, are in the collection of 25th anniversary wishes.

Golden anniversary (50 years)

• Half a century of keeping the same promise. Congratulations with all our hearts on your golden wedding anniversary.
• Dear Mum and Dad, fifty years of marriage is a gift you gave not only to each other but to all of us. Happy golden anniversary!
• For your golden wedding we wish you good health, good days and the kind of calm that only comes after fifty years together.

Children, grandchildren, neighbours and clubs will find a collection of their own among the 50th anniversary wishes, together with paragraphs for a short toast.

Every anniversary

• Happy anniversary! May the year ahead give you more time together than the last one did.
• Warmest wishes on [number] years together: good health, patience with each other and plenty to laugh about.
• Another year together is reason enough to celebrate, whatever the number in front of it. Happy anniversary!

Many anniversary wishes now arrive as a text or a WhatsApp message, often before breakfast. One sentence that does not read like a template is all it takes. The first six suit couples among family and friends, the next three are for your own partner, and the last three cover particular situations.

• Happy anniversary, you two!
• [Number] years and not slowing down. Congratulations, lovely people!
• [Number] years ago today you said yes. Today we say: congratulations!
• To you both, and to everything still to come.
• Another year married already? Time for a toast. Happy anniversary!
• Happy anniversary! Go and celebrate yourselves properly today.
• Still you. Still yes.
• Thank you for another year with you. I'm cooking tonight.
• I didn't forget. Happy anniversary to us.
• Happy anniversary, Mum and Dad. You make a brilliant team.
• Thinking of you both today. Lots of love from far away!
• A day late, but I mean every word: happy anniversary!

Adapting any of these takes three steps: fill in the brackets, match the greeting to the relationship, and add half a sentence that only fits this couple, such as the place of their first holiday, the dog or the song from their first dance. If you are a day late, say so plainly; a late message with one honest line lands better than a punctual cliché.