For however many years it has been
An anniversary present has to do something a birthday present does not, which is be about two people at once. These covers do it in two ways. Half of them put the role on the front and let you set the word, so Wife, Wifey, Husband, Hubby or whatever the pair of you actually use goes on in the largest type the cover will take. The rest turn one fact you already share into the picture: where it started, the sky above it that night, two names lettered along a pair of linked hands, or the handwriting off the card they gave you. Nothing here prints a figure for the years, because the figure is only true for twelve months and the book lasts a good deal longer.
- World's best WifeFor the one who has heard every one of your stories twice and stayed, a world title at last.£17.99
- Best Wife everHer title in type large enough to end the discussion, with Best above it and Ever below.£17.99
- World's best HusbandThe full and proper title, with a script line above it and a name below, which is roughly how weddings work.£17.99
- Best Husband everThe formal word, given the biggest type on the cover, which is not how it usually gets said.£17.99
- World's best WifeyThe name you actually use at home, set formally enough to be funny about it.£17.99
- Best Hubby everSaid the way it is said in the kitchen, and set as though it were carved into a building.£17.99
- Two handsTwo hands, little fingers linked, and your two names written along the forearms in the same unbroken line as the drawing.£17.99
- Your place, mappedAny place on earth drawn as a map, marked with a symbol, its name and coordinates beneath and a line of your own under that.£17.99
- Your sky, chartedThe exact night sky above any place on earth, on any date, drawn as a chart across the cover, place and date beneath.£17.99
- A handwritten notePhotograph a recipe card, a leaving card or a letter, and the handwriting alone is lifted off the paper and engraved.£17.99
- The sitcom£17.99
- A poem for themTell us about them (their dogs, their hills, whatever makes them them) and we write a short poem for the cover.£17.99
- Portrait and caption£17.99
- Secret message (on the back)On the back of the book: one short line in the bottom corner, small enough that somebody has to go looking.£17.99
- The best is yet to come£17.99
Say the role, or say the place
This page splits cleanly in two, so know which half you are shopping in before you start. The role covers are the loud ones: the word set as large as the cover allows, a rule beneath it and a name under that, in one of two voices. World's best puts a script line above the role and reads as a title awarded; Best ever shouts the same verdict from three lines. Either way the word is a box you type in, so Wifey, Hubby, Mrs or the name only the two of you use goes on instead of the one we happened to print in the example. The other half say nothing about a role at all and are the covers to buy for somebody who would be embarrassed carrying the word Wife into a meeting.
A place and a night outlast a number
The obvious anniversary present states how many years it has been, and it is the weakest thing you can put on a cover, because it stops being true in twelve months. A place does not. The map takes any spot on earth, whether that is the register office, the pub you met in or a field in the rain, and draws it with its name and coordinates beneath. The sky chart takes the same place and a date and draws the night exactly as it was above it. The framed cover is the version for people who would rather write the fact than draw it: three lines of your own inside an ornate border, which is where "the one where we finally bought the house" ends up.
Things you already own, and how much to say
Two of these start from paper you already have. The handwritten note cover photographs something already written (the card from the wedding, a letter, a recipe in a hand nobody has left) and lifts the handwriting alone onto the leather, leaving the paper and the shine of the biro behind. The photograph cover takes a picture and sets one line under it, which on an anniversary is usually a date. Both are presents that cannot be bought anywhere else, because the thing being engraved is already in a drawer in your house. Whichever you pick, remember that a notebook is opened in meetings and left on kitchen tables: read what you have typed out loud once, in the voice of somebody who is not in the marriage, and you will know whether it belongs on the front or on the back.
An anniversary is a fixed date that nobody gets to move, and the covers that use a photograph take a moment longer because the picture is redrawn before anything is engraved. Give it a clear week; the day itself is too late. You will find no delivery date here, because the carriers publish their own each year and we will not guess at them. What dispatch and delivery take is set out on Delivery and returns.