Anniversary photo ideas, from then-and-now to this year

The best anniversary photos put the years side by side: the same pose, the same place, the same song, a little older. Here are 20 ideas, half for recreating where you started and half for marking this year, plus iPhone tips for remakes and a way to make your first photo together move.

Then and now

1. Recreate your first photo together Find the earliest picture of the two of you and copy it: the pose, the faces, the angle. Hold the old print in the new shot.
2. Back where you met The coffee shop, the campus bench, the bar stool. Sit in the same spots and have a friend shoot from where the bartender stood.
3. The wedding outfit, again Put the dress or the suit back on at home, zipped or not. The laughing while you try is part of the photo.
4. Your wedding photo, held up Hold a framed wedding photo in front of your chests so your faces now sit right above your faces then.
5. The cake tier from the freezer On the first anniversary, the saved top tier and two forks. Shoot the first bite and the face that follows.
6. Same restaurant, same order Book the first-date restaurant and order exactly what you had. Shoot the plates, then the toast across the table.
7. Rings on the album Open the wedding album to your favorite page and rest both rings on it. Shoot close in window light.
8. One print for every year Lay out one photo from each year in a line on the bed or the floor, then lie down at the end of the line together.
9. The family that came since Retake your wedding pose with the kids or pets who joined later, standing where the bouquet used to be.
10. Then-and-now with grandparents For a 40th or 50th, the couple holds their wedding photo while the whole family gathers around them.

Marking this year

1. Kitchen dance to your wedding song After dinner, socks on the tile, one lamp on. Play the song from your first dance and let someone shoot from the doorway, or prop the phone on the counter.
2. Reading old love letters aloud One reads, the other reacts. Shoot the listener’s face, not the paper.
3. Numbers for the years Gold number balloons for 10, 25 or 50, floating behind you on the couch or tied to the porch rail.
4. This year’s traditional gift Paper for the first, cotton for the second, wood for the fifth, tin for the tenth, silver for the 25th. Pose with it, or build the photo around it.
5. Kids holding the sign The kids hold up a sign with the number of years in front, slightly out of focus, while you two kiss behind it.
6. Toast at sunset Two glasses clinking with the low sun between them. Shoot from the side, close to the glasses.
7. Renewing your vows in the backyard A handful of guests, string lights, the same words or new ones. Shoot from behind the officiant so you see both faces.
8. Hotel robes on the balcony On the anniversary getaway, coffee in robes on the balcony with the view behind you.
9. Photographing each other Each of you aims a phone at the other at the same time. A third shot, from a friend, shows both of you doing it.
10. The memory jar Fill a jar with one memory per slip and pull them out together on the couch. Catch the reaction to the funniest one.

Make it move

An anniversary is a good day to bring an old photo back to life. In Tada:

• Natural for the first photo you ever took together or a scanned wedding print: you both blink, breathe and smile a little, and hair and clothes move slightly. It’s motion made by AI, not a recording of that day. More in how to animate old photos.
• Lively for the kitchen dance or the try-on of the wedding outfit: people laugh, turn their heads and gesture, and clothes swing.
• Crayon Hearts, an AI look in Add effects, for the love-letter reading: puffy pastel-crayon hearts, two tiny love letters and heartbeat squiggles appear around you, and the hearts pulse.

Each uses 1 AI tada; you get 3 free. Tada asks for your OK first, because the photo goes to OpenAI and xAI to make it (privacy). Saved tadas are Live Photos you can send in Messages on the day.

iPhone tips for anniversary photos

• For a then-and-now remake, look at the old photo first and match the height of the camera, not only the pose. Turn on Grid in Settings > Camera to put your faces where they were.
• To copy an old print, lay it flat in window light, hold the phone parallel to it, and shift a little until the glossy surface stops reflecting.
• No one to hold the phone at the restaurant or on the balcony? With supported AirPods, press the AirPod stem to take the photo.
• Keep Live Photo on for the kitchen dance. In Photos, tap Edit, then the Live Photo button, and choose the frame mid-spin as the key photo.

Questions

Sources: Apple Support: Take and edit Live Photos · iPhone User Guide: Use iPhone camera tools to set up your shot · iPhone User Guide: iPhone camera basics

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