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Celebrating a Wedding Anniversary

In this day and age when getting a divorce is just as common as getting married, celebrating a wedding anniversary has become more important. The longer a couple has been married, the more special each anniversary becomes. The passing of each anniversary makes the vows that couples make when they wed more meaningful, especially that part of the vow that says “Till death do us part.”
The way people celebrate a wedding anniversary varies depending on which country they live in and their own traditions surrounding the occasion. In the western world, the first, the fifth, the 10th, the 15th, the 20th, the 25th, the 50th and each anniversary following that are often celebrated lavishly. But it ultimately depends on the married couple how they wish to spend their wedding anniversary.

Traditional and Modern Wedding Anniversary Gifts
Couples celebrating a wedding anniversary are customarily given specific gifts corresponding to the number of years they have been married. According to historians, this custom is a carry-over from the Middle Ages, wherein people believed that tokens given after a certain number of years of a couple’s marriage are supposed to bring more luck to the couple. Aside from being tokens of good luck, each gift also represents the irreplaceable investment that the couple has made on each other while they are married.

Here is the list of traditional and modern anniversary gifts as compiled and popularized by the Chicago Public Library:

 

Year	Traditional	Modern	Flowers
1st	paper	clocks	carnation
2nd	cotton	china	lily of the valley
3rd	leather	crystal, glass	sunflower
4th	linen, silk	appliances	hydrangea
5th	wood	sliverware	daisy
6th	iron	wooden objects	calla lily
7th	wool, copper	desk sets	freesia
8th	bronze	linens, lace	lilac
9th	pottery, china	leather goods	bird of paradise
10th	tin, aluminum	diamond jewelry	daffodil
11th	steel	fashion jewelry	tulip
12th	silk	pearls, colored gems	peony
13th	lace	textiles, furs	chrysanthemum
14th	ivory	gold jewelry	orchid
15th	crystal	watches	rose
16th		silver hollowware
17th		furniture
18th		porcelain
19th		bronze
20th	china	platinum	aster
21st		brass, nickel
22nd		copper
23rd		silver plate
24th		musical instruments
25th	silver	sterling silver	iris
30th	pearl	diamond	lily
35th	coral, jade	jade
40th	ruby	ruby	gladiolus
45th	sapphire	sapphire
50th	gold	gold	yellow roses
55th	emerald	emerald
60th	diamond	diamond

 

Ideas for Celebrating a Wedding Anniversary
Beyond the gifts that a couple is supposed to give each other or to receive from friends and family, a wedding anniversary is ideally a time to rekindle the love that brought the two people to the decision to marry. It is always great to celebrate a wedding anniversary with friends and family, but the best way of celebrating it is to do something with just the two of them.

A quiet, candlelit dinner, whether at home or at a restaurant, is always desirable. This gives the couple a chance to see each other in a way that they may have forgotten in the passing years of their marriage. Dinners by candlelight are not only romantic. They also offer a glimpse of the lovely girl he proposed to, and the handsome guy she said yes to – beautiful faces that they may have taken for granted in the passage of time together.

Nothing, however, beats going on a romantic getaway to celebrate a wedding anniversary. Even if it is just a picnic at the park, an overnight stay in a luxury hotel, or a weekend at a beach resort, spending time away from the family and reliving the days when they were still in the early days of their relationship, is the best way of celebrating a wedding anniversary.