Wedding Anniversary Celebrations from 1st to 75th Anniversary

One of the earliest know references to wedding anniversaries are to the 25th and 50th Wedding Anniversaries (Silver & gold respectively.) The spouse gave his wife a silver garland when they had been married for 25 years.

Among the medieval Germans it was customary for friends to present a wife with a wreath of silver when she had lived with her husband twenty-five years, hence arose the term 'silver wedding'. The silver symbolized harmony.

On the fiftieth anniversary of a wedding the wife was presented with a wreath of gold.

The 75th anniversary is the original traditional diamond anniversary with the 60th being added when Queen Victoria (English Empire Monarch) celebrated her Diamond Jubilee on her 60th anniversary of accession to the throne in 1897 and this has since been adopted as an appropriate Wedding Anniversary also.

The list below is by no means definitive as a number of variations exist on traditional and modern views of what should be given on any given anniversary.

1st: Paper
2nd: Cotton
3rd: Leather
4th: Fruit
5th: Wood
6th: Iron
7th: Copper
8th: Bronze
9th: Pottery
10th: Alluminium
11th: Steel
12th: Silk
13th: Lace
14th: Ivory
15th: Crystal
20th: China
25th: Silver Wedding Anniversay
30th: Pearl
35th: Coral
40th: Ruby
45th: Sapphire
50th Wedding Anniversary: Gold
55th: Emerald
75th Wedding Anniversary: Diamond

©	Copyright 2005