Planning a First Anniversary Paper Party

The wedding may still be a fresh memory, but a first anniversary is a great occasion for a celebration that will provide even more special memories for that special couple. Unlike the wedding itself, the first-anniversary party will be a casual event and will call for inexpensive gifts.

How to Plan a First Anniversary Paper Party

  1. Step 1

    Make the invitations. Choose a cute wedding snapshot and make a copy for each invitation. Center the photo on the front of the card, with the words “Has one year already gone by?” Inside, write something like the following: “Please help us celebrate Joe and Joni’s first-year anniversary. Come to a paper party at (place and time).” Provide a phone number or email address for the RSVP.

  2. Step 2

    Make the invitation insert, which will read: “Please bring inexpensive paper products for your anniversary gift. Suggestions: paper towels, paper napkins, paper plates, bath tissue, facial tissue, stationery, notepads and other paper items.”

  3. Step 3

    Plan the decorations. Save or collect enough full-color Sunday comics pages to tape together and make into a tablecloth. (Tape on one side and then turn over.) Buy or make paper flowers and arrange them in cardboard food containers, such as cracker or cereal boxes. Seize the occasion to use up all of your leftover paper plates, cups and napkins, so that the table is a riot of birthday, Halloween and Valentine items.

  4. Step 4

    Plan the refreshments: Make or buy a variety of cupcakes and serve in their paper baking cups. Center one candle atop each frosted cupcake. To accompany the cupcakes, bring out a big bowl of fresh-cut fruit and ice cream in its paper container. Before guests eat their cupcakes, each makes a wish for the couple and blows out the candle.

  5. Step 5

    Ask the couple to bring their calendar or day planner from the past year. During the refreshments, you’ll ask the couple to share one highlight from each month of the first year of their marriage.

  6. Step 6

    Plan a few pencil-and-paper games. Here are two possibilities:1. Give each pair of guests a sheet of paper on which the first names of the couple are written. Each pair tries to come up with the most common words that can be made from the letters in the couple’s names.2. Give each of the guests each a sheet of paper on which to privately print the month he was born, as well as several activities typical of that month. Then, going through the calendar month by month, ask each guest to silently act out one of the activities she jotted down, and have others guess what she is pantomiming. Note: guests with the same birth month may choose to act as a team.

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