The Best Anniversary Gift Is a Custom Song (Plus 5 Classics)

You want a song for your anniversary, and the obvious playlist picks feel a little too obvious. Maybe it is the record that was playing on your first date, or maybe you are still hunting for the one that finally says what this many years together actually feels like. Either way, you are here because the right song matters to you.

Five Love Songs for an Anniversary (and One Made Just for You)

Here are five songs that have earned their place at anniversary dinners and slow dances, each one verified and worth a listen. The sixth idea is the one with your names in it.

1. "At Last" by Etta James. James recorded this for her 1960 debut album of the same name, though the Mack Gordon and Harry Warren song was already nearly twenty years old, first popularized by Glenn Miller and his orchestra. Her version reached number two on the R&B chart and has since become the definitive one. It is the sound of waiting finally paying off, which is exactly the note an anniversary tends to hit.

2. "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" by Stevie Wonder. Released as a single in 1973 from his 1972 album Talking Book, this became Wonder's third number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 and won him a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Wonder wrote it for his wife Syreeta Wright. It is a husband looking at a familiar face and remembering, all over again, why he loves it.

3. "Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison. From his 1970 album Moondance, this one trades grand declarations for something quieter and stranger. Wedding DJs have kept it in rotation for decades as a slow dance, and its unhurried sway suits a couple who has stopped trying to impress anyone. If your relationship has a private language, this song understands that.

4. "All of Me" by John Legend. Legend wrote this ballad for his now-wife Chrissy Teigen, and it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2014. The whole song is about loving the whole person, curves, edges, and all. That is a fitting sentiment for a couple who knows each other well enough to have stopped rounding off the corners.

5. "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran. Released in 2017 from his album ÷, Sheeran set out to write the best love song of his career, and it topped the UK chart after a duet version with Beyoncé. It has become a modern first-dance standard. For a milestone anniversary, it lands like a vow renewed.

6. A custom song from Penned For You. The five above are beautiful because they were true for someone else. The last option is true for you. We write a custom song with your actual names in it, the year you met, the inside jokes, the things that make the two of you specifically you. It does what "At Last" did for Etta James, except the story it tells is yours.

A borrowed song can come close. A custom song says the exact thing. You fill out a short form, about five minutes, telling us who your partner is, how long it has been, and the details only the two of you would know. We turn that into a finished, produced song with their name in the lyrics. It costs $29.99, with 24-hour standard turnaround and 1-hour rush if your anniversary is tomorrow and you just remembered. Start your song and give them the one song that could only be about them. Or write their song tonight and have it ready before the candles are lit.

Anniversaries are for the story only the two of you share, so give it a soundtrack that no one else could have written. When you are ready, we will write their song.