Wooden Anniversary: 5th Wedding Anniversary Gift Ideas

The 5th wedding anniversary is the wooden anniversary: wood is the fifth-year gift in both the traditional British and the American lists, and it already was in Emily Post's 1922 book of etiquette. The present is something made of wood, ideally something you'll use or something that keeps a piece of your story: a memory box, a tree to plant, an engraved chopping board, a small piece of furniture. A skateboard deck earns its place on that list, because it's real wood, seven plies of maple, and with your wedding photo and the date on it, it becomes something nobody else has. Here's where the wood comes from, gift ideas of every kind, who the deck makes sense for, and how to make yours.

Which anniversary is the wooden one?

The fifth. The lists that give each anniversary a material aren't a rule or a fixed tradition, and they vary from one to the next, but on the fifth they agree. The traditional British list, which Wikipedia reproduces from Pears Cyclopaedia, gives cotton or paper for the first year, paper or cotton for the second, leather for the third, linen or silk for the fourth and wood for the fifth. The American list swaps a few early years around, but the fifth is wood there too.

Where they differ is further on. Emily Post, in her Etiquette of 1922, gave only a handful: paper for the first year, wood for the fifth, tin for the tenth, crystal for the fifteenth, china for the twentieth, silver at 25, gold at 50 and diamond at 75. In the British list the tenth is still tin, and diamond comes at 60. Post added something that takes the pressure off: in her day, paper, wooden and tin presents were seldom anything but jokes, and crystal was the first one people took seriously.

The wood is usually read like this: after five years, the marriage is no longer as fragile as paper, but it's still growing. Whether you take it as a symbol or as an excuse, it's a good theme for a present. And if you're not married, the same idea works between partners: a deck with your photo is covered in the Valentine's guide, with ideas that work for any anniversary.

Wooden gift ideas for the 5th anniversary

Not everything has to be decoration. Some ideas, from the most practical to the most symbolic:

• Something wooden you'll use every day. A chopping board or a cheese board engraved with your initials, a breakfast tray, a hand-carved wooden spoon. If there's cooking in your house, it's the present that'll get handled most.
• A wedding memory box. A wooden box engraved with the date, to keep the invitation, the menu, the cork from the bubbly, the photo-booth strips and whatever has survived five years of moving house. The nice part is filling it before you give it.
• A tree. Plant it together, in the garden, at the family home or in a big pot on the balcony: at five years, something that grows with you. An oak, a rowan or a fruit tree, depending on the space and the soil you have.
• A small piece of furniture. A bench for the hall, a shelf, or a grandparent's chair, restored. It makes more sense if it's something you've been missing since you moved in.
• An experience with wood in it. A woodworking or carving class for two, a night in a cabin, or a trip back to where you got married.
• A personal wooden object. A watch, sunglasses with wooden frames, or an instrument if either of you plays: a bodhrán, a guitar or a wooden flute.
• A skateboard deck with your photo. Real wood that hangs like a picture. More on that below.

If you can't choose between a few, combine them: the memory box and a dinner, the tree and a photo of the day you planted it. And if the present is from family or friends to the couple, a deck that everyone signs works as well as a guest book: leave the top side without griptape and pass round a few markers (try them first in a corner that won't show).

A skateboard deck as a wooden anniversary gift

A skateboard deck is serious wood: ours is seven plies of Canadian maple, glued and pressed in a mould, and you can see them along the edge like the pages of a book. It isn't a wood-effect panel or a printed canvas, and that's why it fits the fifth anniversary better than almost any photo gift. Your design is printed on the underside, the side you see when it hangs, and the top stays bare wood unless you order griptape.

It makes sense if one of you skates or used to, if you like a bit of street style, or if you're looking for something for a narrow wall, in a hall or on a landing, where a frame won't fit. It makes less sense if nothing ever goes up on your walls, or if the person receiving it would get more out of something they use, like the chopping board or the bench.

What to put on it:

• A wedding photo. Vertical is best, with the two of you at a decent size: the deck is narrow and much longer than it is wide. The photos from your wedding album belong to the photographer: under the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, the author of a work is the first owner of its copyright (section 23), and copying it is one of the acts only the owner can authorise (section 37). Paying for the package doesn't hand those rights over unless your contract says so, so check the contract or drop them a line: an email is usually enough. How many pixels the photo needs is in which photos look good printed on a deck; below 150 ppi at printed size it looks soft.
• The date and the place. The wedding day in big numbers or Roman numerals, the name of the church, the hotel or the town, or the coordinates of the place, which only the two of you will get.
• A huge “5”. With the date underneath, in a typeface you like. On the personalised name deck page you type the text and see it on the deck in 26 lettering styles.
• Then and now. The wedding photo and one from today, one on each deck of a set of two. A set doesn't have to be one photo split in half: it's a layout spread over several decks, and you can put one image on each. It's still one design and one order, and each deck costs the same as a single one: the pair is 178 €. How a set works, in one photo split across two decks.
• Several photos from these five years. The photo collage places three in several layouts at once, with an optional caption, and the one you choose opens in the editor for finishing touches.

And a detail only a deck has: if you don't order griptape, the top side is bare wood, and it takes a handwritten message. You write it with a marker straight onto the wood, and a few test letters in a corner that won't show help you choose the colour and the thickness. Anything you write there will be covered, of course, if one day you put griptape on it to ride it.

How to make your anniversary deck

1. Gather what you need: the photo as the original file (not the one that went through the group chat, which arrives compressed), the date and, if the photo is the photographer's, their permission.
2. Design it in the editor, or start from your photo on a deck: upload the photo, add the text, choose the background colour and look at it in 3D before you order. It's free and doesn't ask for an account, and when you save it you get a link to open it again. Keep anything important away from the nose and tail, which curve up, and from the truck holes, which the editor draws over the design.
3. Pick the width: 8.0", 8.25", or 8.5", all the same price. For the wall, any of them will do.
4. Order it with time to spare. The good thing about an anniversary is that the date doesn't catch you by surprise. The deck is printed in Spain, and we don't give a delivery date for orders outside Spain, so leave yourself plenty of time. Shipping is one charge per order: 20 € to Ireland, from 15 € to the rest of the EU depending on the country. We don't ship to Northern Ireland or the rest of the UK.
5. Hang it. The deck arrives on its own, without a mount. The ways to put it up, with or without drilling, are in how to hang a skateboard on the wall, and more ideas for the wall in skateboard wall art ideas.

The deck is 89 €, and it's printed by transfer: UV inks on a film that is applied to the underside of the deck (how a custom skateboard deck is made). If you're torn between the deck and a photo printed on a wooden panel, we compare them in photo on wood. And if the one you married skates, what else they'd actually like is in gifts for a skater boyfriend or girlfriend.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Lists of wedding anniversaries, traditional British (from Pears Cyclopaedia) and American: Wikipedia, “Wedding anniversary”. Emily Post, Etiquette (1922), section “Wedding anniversaries”, on Project Gutenberg. Wedding photos and copyright: Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, sections 23 and 37, on the Irish Statute Book. All consulted in October 2026. This is practical guidance, not legal advice.