The same photo mug for the Christmas gifting season, with the December ordering deadline on the page.
The same photo mug for weddings and the photographs from the day.
The same photo mug for a new arrival, a nursery or a first-year keepsake.
The one anniversary where the traditional material and a photo product line up exactly. Fine porcelain, a photograph from the two decades, and a date on the reverse.
A hard brief, because they own everything. Two mugs with a photograph of them from before you were born is specific enough to land, and cheap enough that nobody feels awkward receiving it.
Not every anniversary is a round number. A mug is the right scale for the years in between — personal, used daily, and not an event in itself.
A mug works well as the small opened-first item next to a canvas or a photo book. It costs little and it gives the recipient something to hold while they look at the bigger thing.