Anniversary gifts by year: the traditional and modern list, from the 1st to the 50th

The traditional list goes back to old etiquette books, and the modern list was added in the twentieth century. Families and stores don’t always agree on every year, so this is the version you’ll see most often in the US. Each entry gives the traditional gift first and the modern one in parentheses.

• 1st anniversary: paper (modern: clocks)
• 2nd anniversary: cotton (modern: china)
• 3rd anniversary: leather (modern: crystal or glass)
• 4th anniversary: fruit or flowers (modern: appliances)
• 5th anniversary: wood (modern: silverware)
• 6th anniversary: iron (modern: wood)
• 7th anniversary: wool or copper (modern: desk sets)
• 8th anniversary: bronze (modern: linens or lace)
• 9th anniversary: pottery (modern: leather)
• 10th anniversary: tin or aluminum (modern: diamond jewelry)
• 15th anniversary: crystal (modern: watches)
• 20th anniversary: china (modern: platinum)
• 25th anniversary: silver (modern: sterling silver)
• 30th anniversary: pearl (modern: diamond)
• 35th anniversary: coral (modern: jade)
• 40th anniversary: ruby
• 45th anniversary: sapphire
• 50th anniversary: gold
• 60th anniversary: diamond

The first year is over, the wedding album is finally done, and the first anniversary calls for something personal that doesn’t feel like a chore. Taken literally, paper means cards, letters, and books. Taken loosely, paper means words.

• A letter about what turned out different in the first year than you expected. Handwritten, on real paper.
• Your wedding vows again, but this time the ones you didn’t dare to say back then.
• A book you both write one page in every year. By the 25th, it’s full.
• The places of your first year on a map, with one line about each. The places are the paper, the lines are the ink.

Five years, often with small kids, little sleep, and even less time for the two of you. Ten years, the first decade that feels like it deserves a look back. Both anniversaries call for something that remembers.

• For the 5th: a tree in the yard or a planter on the balcony, with a small sign that has your date on it. It grows with you.
• For the 5th: an evening without the kids, with your wedding song and the photos from the first year.
• For the 10th: a tin box with ten notes inside, one for each year, saying what happened in it. The notes last longer than any flowers.
• For the 10th: a page with the ten places that shaped your decade, each with photos and a voice message.
• For the 10th: invite your wedding guests again, not in person but with a link. Everyone writes what they wish you for the next ten years.

From here on, it’s often not just the two of them giving each other something, but the kids giving something to their parents. The silver anniversary is the first one that gets a real celebration, with family and friends. The best gift is one everyone takes part in.

• From the kids: a page where every child and grandchild writes a line, adds a photo from back then and from today, and leaves a voice message. Watched together on a tablet after dinner.
• The honeymoon again, on a smaller scale: a weekend at the place of their first trip, given by the kids, with one request for a photo in the same spot.
• Their wedding song, sung or played by the grandkids, recorded, and played as a surprise at dinner.
• For the two of you: a letter in which each of you writes what you never got tired of in the other in 25 years.
• China for the 20th: a mug for each of you with a line the other one says all the time. Useful and honest.

Forty or fifty years married: that’s two people who know each other like nobody else does, and a whole family that grew out of that marriage. At a golden anniversary, three generations often come together, and the best gifts tell the story of those fifty years.

• A family memory book: every daughter, son, and grandchild writes down one memory of the two of them. Printed, or as a page with voices and photos that the grandson in Seattle can add to as well.
• The voices of the grandkids: each one tells their grandparents something, recorded at home, collected on one page. For grandparents whose eyes aren’t what they used to be, listening is the gift.
• Photos from fifty years, collected by the kids, scanned, and put in order to tell the story: the wedding, the first house, the kids, the grandkids.
• Their wedding song at dinner, played by someone in the family.
• Something small and golden can be part of it, as a side note. What stays is what the family said.

Whatever the year, three things always work for an anniversary, because they tell the couple’s story instead of checking off a material.

• Your places: where you met, where the proposal happened, where you lived. On a map, with one line about each place.
• Your song: the one from the wedding, the first dance, or the one that was always on in the car.
• Your voices: what you want to tell each other, recorded instead of bought. And for the silver or golden anniversary, the voices of the kids and grandkids too.

All three fit on one page that’s ready in an hour and handed over as a link or as a card with a QR code. For your first anniversary, you fill it yourself. For your parents’ 25th, the whole family fills it, without the two of them noticing a thing.