Wedding anniversary traditions

Celebrating anniversaries has always been a popular custom. Early reasons to celebrate were linked to cycles of life: seedtime, harvesttime, the changing of seasons and life events—the wedding, for example. The anniversary of the wedding day became a legitimate reason to celebrate.

According to Hallmark research, the custom of associating silver with the 25th wedding anniversary and gold with the 50th wedding anniversary appear to have originated in the Germanic region of Middle Europe. The silver anniversary included a husband giving his wife a silver garland when they had been married 25 years. On the 50th anniversary, the husband gave the wife a wreath of gold.

Currently, two diamond anniversaries are celebrated—one at 60 and one at 75 years. The 75th anniversary is the original diamond anniversary and the 60th was added when Queen Victoria (English Empire Monarch) celebrated her Diamond Jubilee on her 60th anniversary of accession to the throne in 1897.