Okay, who created and started the list for traditional wedding anniversary gifts?
In 1922 Emily Post published a book named “Etiquette” where she named 8 specific materials for gifts marking wedding anniversaries years and explained how they ought to be marked. 1st year – paper, 5th year – wood, 10th year – tin (aluminum), 15th year – crystal, 20th year – china (porcelain), 25th year – silver, and 50th year – Gold.
But who filled in the rest of the years? When we started in 1999 the several online lists all pretty much agreed with each other. The lists went from years 1 to 15 in increments of 1, but then they went in increments of 5, so 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50. We have great repeat customers, husbands coming back each year to order that year’s anniversary gift. We were losing repeats customers after year 15, so WE created 16wax, 17shell, 18sunflower and 19chilipepper. We also added 21, 22, 23, and 24 using custom personalized paper roses as specified by our customer.
- 1stPaper
- 2ndCotton
- 3rdLeather
- 4thFruit
- 5thWood
- 6thCandy
- 7thWool
- 8thBronze
- 9thPottery
- 10thAluminum
- 11thSteel
- 12thSilk (not real silk)
- 13thLace
- 14thIvory (not real ivory)
- 15thCrystal
- 16thWax
- 17thShell
- 18thSunflower
- 19thChili pepper
- 20thChina/Porcelain
- 21st-24thCustom
- 25thSilver
- 50thGold
So COLLECT THEM ALL ! You don’t have to start with 1st. Let’s say you’re finding us on your 9th Anniversary. When you scroll down in the menu to select the # of stems, the last option is “1-stem of each years past” so you’d get 1-stem each of 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 and then the next year you can add a 1-stem 10thAluminum
