The practice of giving specific anniversary gifts based on how many years you’ve been married is nothing new in the wedding world. The meaning behind the specificity of each year is rooted in the growth of your marriage and how the longer you’re married, the stronger your bond and relationship.These gifts start off simple as your marriage just began and their substance and significance grows over the years just as your investment in each other. We’ve compiled a list of all the year-specific anniversary gifts in their traditional sense and put a modern twist on them.
1-Year Anniversary Gift
Traditional Gift: Paper
Paper is a fitting gift to celebrate your first year of marriage because it represents how fragile marriage is in the beginning stages. If you take proper care of the paper, though, it can last a lifetime.
Modern Gift: Clocks
Time is our most precious asset and clocks represent the passing of time and the changes and challenges that come in the first years of marriage.
Gemstone: Gold
While gold is not technically a gemstone, it’s the perfect special metal to transition couples into more luxurious gift-giving. A simple gold bracelet for her and a gold tie clip for him would make for perfect gifts to celebrate your first year of marriage.
2-Year Anniversary Gift
Traditional Gift: Cotton
The woven threads of cotton symbolize how you’ve become more interconnected as time passes and how you’ve learned to be more flexible.
Modern Gift: China
China, both strong and delicate, indicates the weaknesses and strengths of every relationship.
Gemstone: Garnet
While garnet comes in a variety of colors, red garnet is most commonly used for this anniversary. Cufflinks with red garnet stones for him and red garnet earrings make for special gifts for your second year together.
3-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Leather
Leather represents the shelter and security that comes with your third year of marriage, symbolizing the home you build with each other.
Modern Gift: Crystal or Glass
Glass and cut crystals both signify and reflect the beauty and light around it, much like how you two bring out the beauty and light in each other.
Gemstone Pearl
Pearls are a symbol of wisdom and beauty and form many layers over time. The longer they form, the more beautiful they become, just like your marriage. A pearl necklace for her and a pearl tie tack for him are sure to put a smile on their face.
4-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Fruit or Flowers
By your fourth year of marriage, your relationship has fully bloomed, just as fruit and flowers bloom over time.
Modern Gift: Appliances
You’re reached the more practical gift phase, but appliances embody how settled you feel in your relationship.
Gemstone: Blue Topaz
Blue Topaz has long been associated with love, romance, and affection. This gemstone is perfect to set into a necklace or ring for each other.
5-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Wood
The roots of your marriage have sprouted like a tree and the wood signifies that your can endure anything together.
Modern Gift: Silverware
Silverware commemorates all the meals you’ve enjoyed together and will continue to share.
Gemstone: Sapphire
Similar to wood, sapphire is a durable material that can withstand the test of time, just as your marriage has. A wrist watch with sapphires makes for a stunning gift for both him and her.
6-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Iron
Iron marks your strength over these six years and how you’ve maintained such a strong bond.
Modern Gift: Wood
Pulling from the traditional five-year gift, and item made of wood symbolizes the resilience of your marriage.
Gemstone: Amethyst
Amethyst is made of quartz, which is a strong, heavy stone, making it a gift with lasting power and strength. An amethyst business card holder can make the perfect accent for the workplace or home desk.
7-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Copper or Wool
Copper helps create heat, much like the warmth you give each other, and wool is just as cozy.
Modern Gift: Desk Sets
While this might not sound romantic, work is a huge part of modern life and giving a desk set helps bring a touch of home to their work space.
Gemstone: Onyx
Onyx is a hard and durable stone that is often used for carving. It’s believed to protect marriages from strains and trials while also representing harmony. Carved onyx goblets/shot glasses or carved onyx bookends are unique gifts that will make your seven year anniversary extra special.
8-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Bronze or Pottery
Bronze symbolizes strength and indicates that your relationship is only growing stronger through the years.
Modern Gift: Linen or Lace
Linens and lace are both delicate and refined, just like your love. They’re also objects of beauty.
Gemstone: Tourmaline
Tourmaline is tough against damage and long-lasting. This stone is thought to do many things, including bolster relationships.A tourmaline keychain is the perfect accessory for anyone and will remind them of your whenever they see it.
9-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Willow or Pottery
Willow indicates flexibility as does pottery because much like a lump of clay, marriage is formed and shaped over time into something beautiful.
Modern Gift: Leather
Leather was used by our ancestors as a means to protect themselves. The material itself is known for how well it endures, which your marriage has done for the past nine years.
Gemstone: Lapis Lazuli
This stone is used in feng shui to balance negative and positive energies, and is said to encourage honesty as it protects your relationship from any dangers. Lapis Lazuli bracelets are a sweet sentiment to give each other as a means of protection of self and relationship.
10-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Aluminum or Tin
Aluminum and tin don’t rust, meaning they won’t wear down. Their pliability and preservation is a symbol for how every successful marriage requires flexibility.
Modern Gift: Diamond Jewelry
When you’ve passed one decade, your marriage is as beautiful as a diamond!
Gemstone: Diamond
This is the first major milestone you’re marriage will reach so it’s only fitting that it qualifies a diamond. Many couples use this anniversary to add to their wedding rings or to do something unique like constellation steck rings or play off the whole “diamond” theme and get them a gift based off a baseball diamond.
11-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Steel
Steel is one of the strongest metals on earth, so it’s not surprising that it represents your eleven year mark since by this time, nothing can break your bond.
Modern Gift: Fashion Jewelry
While this gift sounds more surprising than the steel, it never gets old and it’s wearable everyday so they’ll remember the sentiment every time they put it on.
Gemstone: Turquoise
Turquoise is one of the oldest charms against evil because it not only protects against evil, but it also brings good health, fortune, and peace. Turquoise pins or bookmarks are wonderful sentiments to ensure that wherever they go, whatever they’re doing, they're protected.
12-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Silk or Linen
As they say, home is where the heart is, and these are two home decor staples. Anniversary presents made from these materials symbolize the life you’ve built together.
Modern Gift: Pearl
Finding a good pearl is like finding a hidden treasure, just like how it felt when you found the love of your life.
Gemstone: Jade
Jade is known to attract love, protection and prosperity. A carved jade stamp is a stunning and special gift for both of you!
13-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Lace
This year is anything but unlucky 13. Lace shows elegance and beauty of the sanctity of marriage for the thirteenth year.
Modern Gift: Textiles or Furs
Different fabrics represent the comfort and warmth thirteen years or marriage brings, but if you’re going for fur, make it faux fur.
Gemstone: Citrine
Bright yellow citrine will bring both joy and love to your significant other. Unique citrine healing crystals or a citrine candle are sure to put a smile on your significant other’s face.
14-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Ivory
Ivory to celebrate the fourteenth anniversary originates from Hindu mythology and signifies luck and protection. Look for elephant themed gifts instead of actual ivory. You can find plenty of off-white materials that look just like ivory.
Modern Gift: Gold Jewelry
Just as significant, gold jewelry represents unification, eternity, and perfection.
Gemstone: Opal
This gorgeous multicolor stone symbolizes love, passion, and desire. Talk about a romantic stone! Opal pens are a stunning addition to any desk, whether it’s at work or home, it’ll bring feelings of love with a single touch.
15-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Crystal
Crystal may be delicate, but it’s also sturdy, like your marriage that is strong enough to have lasted fifteen years and beyond. It also represents clarity and transparency.
Modern gift: Watches
A timepiece in any form signifies the passage of time and all the years you’ve spent together and the ones you’ll share in the future.
Gemstone: Ruby
By fifteen years, the fame is still burning strong, so it’s only makes sense that a ruby commemorates this year. A unique, non-jewelry, gift option could be ruby red coasters that look like geodes or a ruby red article of clothing.
16-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Wax
Just like a candle, you and your significant other have an undeniable spark!
Modern Gift: Silver Hollowware
Think anything related to the dinner table that isn’t silverware - bowls, trays, etc. Silver Hollowware symbolizes unity since you’ll enjoy it when you sit down to dinner for your sixteenth anniversary and all future anniversaries.
Gemstone: Peridot
Peridot is a symbol of undying love and devotion. Peridot is a beautiful green so feel free to think outside the box and make a terrarium together!
17-Year Anniversary
Traditional & Modern Gift: Furniture
Gifting each other furniture represents the security, comfort, and familiarity of a marriage that has been established for seventeen years.
Gemstone: Carnelian
Known as the stone of endurance that also brings joy and warmth, it helps keep a sense of humor in the relationship. A carnelian gemstone tree makes for a statement piece in any house that will fill your home with warmth and laughter.
18-Year Anniversary
Traditional & Modern Gift: Porcelain
Elegant and refined, but also delicate, porcelain signifies the hard work you’ve put into your marriage to keep it going strong for eighteen years. A porcelain gift serves as a reminder to continue to handle your relationship with care.
Gemstone: Cat’s Eye
Named for its resemblance to a cat’s eye, this stone keeps a watchful eye over both of you and removes any melancholy from your lives. Beyond that, It also represents love, commitment, and happiness. Since this stone holds significant power, an item that your significant other can keep with them at all times such as a visor clip for the car or a rearview mirror decoration.
19-Year Anniversary
Traditional & Modern Gift: Bronze
Just like the traditional eight-year gift, bronze indicated that your relationship has grown stronger. Additionally, it symbolizes healthy within your union even through tough times, since some believe it has healing properties.
Gemstone: Aquamarine
Aquamarine is a protection stone that will keep everything that’s bad out but still hold onto all the love from the past nineteen years. An aquamarine jewelry dish would be a beautiful gift that holds onto your love (wedding rings) whenever you’re not wearing them.
20-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: China
China shows the delicate and fragile nature of being in love. It needs to be looked after and handled carefully, just like marriage.
Modern Gift: Platinum
Platinum can stick it out through thick and thin, much like you and your significant other have even after twenty years.
Gemstone: Emerald
The sacred stone of the goddess Venus, emerald is known to preserve love so you can celebrate another twenty years together. An emerald compact mirror for her and an emerald cigar stick for him are unique gifts to commemorate your twenty years together.
25-Year Anniversary
Traditional & Modern Gift: Sterling Silver
Spending a quarter of a century in love is definitely worth celebrating with such a precious and valuable metal. After all, twenty-five years is known as the “silver jubilee.”
Gemstone: Silver
Like gold, silver isn’t technically a gemstone; however, silver jewelry radiates brilliantly, like your love, and symbolically represents a clear vision and lucidity for the future. A silver anniversary clock is an endearing sentiment that displays the years, months, hours, minutes, and seconds that have passed since your wedding day.
30-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Pearl
Deep down in the ocean, you’ll find precious pearls. They represent the hidden beauty of a long-lasting union with maturity that reveals itself from within.
Modern Gift: Diamond
A diamond’s long-lasting endurance, beauty, and strength appropriately reflects the nature of a thirty-year marriage.
Gemstone: Pearl
Both pure and elegant, pearls are as timeless as your marriage. A pearl sundial is a beautiful piece that shows your wedding date and how many years you’ve been together.
35-Year Anniversary
Traditional Gift: Coral
Coral from the ocean is believed to have healing powers that shield you from harm, similar to how the love you have for each other protects your union.
Modern Gift: Jade
Jade represents luck, wealth, wisdom, and passionate love in relation to so many years of marriage.
Gemstone: Emerald
Emerald symbolizes long-lasting love and preservation. As a memorable gift, consider making your own stained glass item with a variety of green shades.
40-Year Anniversary
Traditional & Modern Gift: Ruby
Rubies are thought to possess a flame that never burns out, much like your love and commitment after forty-years of marriage.
Gemstone: Ruby
Keeping with the theme, the precious ruby honors this momentous occasion. To represent the flame of the ruby, ruby candle holders make for a gift that is sure to keep the fire going for another forty-years.
45-Year Anniversary
Traditional & Modern Gift: Sapphire
Sapphires have long been associated with royalty and indicate the longevity of your marriage.
Gemstone: Sapphire
The sapphire gemstone is a shining example to those who also aspire to remain in love for so many years. An endearing keepsake to commemorate this incredible anniversary could be something as simple as a personalized, sapphire family tree that shows how much your love has grown not only between the two of you, but those around you as well.
50-Year Anniversary
Traditional & Modern Gift: Gold
Only something as desirable, classic, and luxe as gold can represent such an important milestone dubbed the “golden anniversary.” It shows the prosperity, wisdom, strength and significance of such a long-standing union.
Gemstone: Gold
Not only is gold beautiful, but it’s also strong and resistance to corrosion and is often associated with wealth, wisdom, and optimism. A love that can last fifty years is incredibly unique, so it calls for a unique gift such as a stone and gold sculpture.
55-Year Anniversary
Traditional & Modern Gift: Emerald
Why are emeralds such a popular anniversary theme? It’s simple: they signify true love as well as devotion and adoration.
Gemstone: Alexandrite
Known for dispelling negative vibes and bringing positive ones in, Alexandrite brings good fortune and prosperity. It’s also undeniably cool in how it’s rare and changes colors in different light. A matching scarf and tie/bow tie would make for a perfect gift to each other that displaces the many colors of alexandrite.
60-Year Anniversary
Traditional & Modern Gift: Diamond
By the time you’ve reached sixty years of marriage, it’s time to pull out all the stops. Celebrating such a special anniversary like this one calls for a stone that represents unconquerable and enduring love.
Gemstone: Diamond
The fire in a diamond indicates an undying love that cannot be dulled. Most couples use this astonishing milestone to upgrade their significant other’s wedding ring with a larger diamond. If you’re looking for something simpler, consider Swarovski crystal love bird figurines.
