Monday, June 8, 2009

Wedding Etiquette: Wedding Anniversaries

Most people like to celebrate wedding anniversaries with presents and perhaps have an evening out at a favorite restaurant or theater.

Traditionally, certain materials are associated with individual years in the course of a marriage, the idea being that anniversary presents in those years should be made out of those particular materials. So, if you want to uphold the custom - flowers and boxes of chocolates notwithstanding - the list below gives the materials generally associated with each year. They do vary slightly, however; paper is sometimes given for the first year, leather for the twelfth, ivory for the fourteenth, wool for the fortieth, and silk for the forty-fifth.

Anniversary Wedding
First Cotton or Paper
Second Paper
Third Leather
Fourth Silk or Flowers
Fifth Wood
Sixth Sugar
Seventh Wool or Copper
Eighth Bronze
Ninth Pottery
Tenth Tin
Eleventh Steel
Twelfth Silk and Fine Linen or Leather
Thirteenth Lace
Fourteenth Ivory
Fifteenth Crystal
Twentieth China
Twenty-fifth Silver
Thirtieth Pearl
Thirty-fifth Coral
Fortieth Ruby
Forty-fifth Sapphire
Fiftieth Gold
Fifty-fifth Emerald
Sixtieth Diamond
Seventieth Platinum
Seventy-fifth Diamond

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