Wedding Anniversaries list

Memorising the Wedding Anniversaries list

wedding anniversaries are special, for romantics!

You could spend a fortune on wedding anniversary gifts, but the old faithfuls are still the most romantic

Wedding anniversaries are worth remembering … specially if you’re the husband! This is one memory area where your memory skills will be appreciated, and you won’t be allowed to forget it if, through some catastrophic mental lapse, you’ve forgotten your darling wife’s special day by failing to recall some important specifics of the wedding anniversaries list.

Of course, all the fuss about wedding anniversaries owes a huge amount to modern-day commercialism. In the past, there were only a handful of special dates to remember in the wedding anniversaries list, most notably the 25th anniversary and the 50th anniversary, since only a few were ever celebrated or commemorated (and there are still just a few, for most people, truth be told). Nowadays, it seems, there’s a whole list of ‘special’ wedding anniversaries, with special gift ideas, special flowers, and who-knows-what-else.

The Romans started it all!

The Romans used to honour their wives with a silver wreath on the occasion of their 25th anniversary, and a gold wreath on their 50th anniversary (and, er, I think that’s enough, frankly, and anything more is just a wreath too far). These days, someone else (the Wedding Anniversary Police?) has decided that many of the other wedding anniversaries are worthy of special commemoration, with special greetings cards and gift ideas that have to follow specific ‘rules’. There’s even a difference in some of the specified gift ideas depending on whether you’re from the UK or the US!

Hey, life’s complicated, what can I say? And woe betide you if you come up with a wood-based gift for one of the wedding anniversaries, when a steel-based gift would be more appropriate! Tsk, tsk, You really should know better.

Memorising the wedding anniversaries list

Better buckle up and get ready for some wedding anniversaries memorisation, unless you want to be caught on the hop! It’s very important to memorise these wedding anniversaries (and the relevant gifts) correctly – a mistake could mean a spell in the dog house. Keen on dog food? Hmm … didn’t think so! So get these critically important gift ideas memorised correctly and don’t take the chance of making a social blunder of gargantuan proportions! Now take care, you need to understand that wedding anniversaries, delightful and romantic as they are, can be a tricky minefield, so watch your step!

A simple gift for one of the wedding anniversaries.

Sometimes, regardless of the extravagance of some of the gifts suggested by the wedding anniversaries list, a simple gift says so much more …

Oh, before we go on, where do we stand on CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species)? I would hope you could manage to curb your urge to order a huge pair of ornamental tusks as a 14th Wedding Anniversary gift (or even some delicately carved ivory ornaments), since it’s just a little bit illegal to trade in ivory nowadays. And even though ivory is an amazing material, and some ivory products are very, very beautiful.

That ivory which we find so delightful was very much appreciated and prized by the original owners too, so perhaps we should honour that and allow them to keep it to themselves. Agreed?

Good! Now that’s out the way, let’s move on …

Note: If all this seems just too much (I mean, have you ever even heard of anyone celebrating their cotton anniversary, or their tin anniversary?), then maybe we should just approach this solely as a memorisation exercise for its own sake. Maybe taking it too seriously (or even at all seriously) would be a huge mistake!

I suppose if you do make that mistake, you could always memorialise it a year from now with your taking-wedding-anniversaries-too-seriously-first-anniversary. Now then, I wonder what gift ideas would be appropriate for that? What flowers? Oh no … I think I’m getting one of my headaches!

Wedding Anniversaries List
YEARU.K.U.S. FLOWER
1PaperCarnation
2CottonLily of the Valley
3LeatherSunflower
4Fruit and FlowersLinen, SilkHydrangea
5WoodDaisy
6SugarIronCalla
7Wool, CopperFreesia
8BronzeLilac
9Willow, PotteryPotteryBird of paradise
10TinTin, AluminumDaffodil
11SteelTulip
12Silk/Fine linenSilkPeony
13LaceChrysanthemum
14IvoryDahlia
15CrystalRose
20ChinaAster
25SilverIris
30PearlLily
35CoralCoral, Jade
40RubyGladiolus
45Sapphire
50GoldYellow rose, violet
55Emerald
60Diamond
65Blue Sapphire
70Platinum
75Diamond and Gold
80Oak
85Wine

Linking number lists to wedding anniversaries

You could use any number list to memorise these wedding anniversary gifts and flowers, just associating the gifts and flowers with the images or characters you already link to the numbers. You’ve got a head start, of course, since certain anniversaries are so well known. Everyone knows the 25th anniversary is silver and the 50th is gold. Most people are probably also aware that the 40th anniversary is ruby and the 60th anniversary is diamond. After that, you very likely need to get to work on memorising the all-important list of wedding anniversaries.

Can you imagine Prof. Marcus presenting the old lady (Mrs Wilberforce) with his very own and very woolly scarf, lying neatly folded in a copper dish? He’s been touched by her story that her old man’s ship went down on their seventh anniversary and he felt the urge to do something nice to make her feel better … before they’re forced to kill her!

She starts to sob at his apparent kindness, and he brings his hand from behind his back and he’s holding a bunch of freesias he’s just snatched out of a vase in the hall, a twisted smile touching his lips. He presents them to her with an exaggerated charm and she accepts them sweetly, although she realises full well where he got them. She thinks he’s a nice man, but perhaps a bit shady. Maybe she should keep an eye on him …

Did the old man’s ship go down on their seventh anniversary? Who cares! Just make it up. You’ll forever link the seventh anniversary to wool and copper … and freesias!

Imagine Mike Tyson (10) punching dents in a huge, oversized tin can with a massive bunch of bright yellow daffodils stuffed in it – there’s the 10th anniversary taken care of!

Can you see Sherlock Holmes smashing the little china reproduction busts of Napoleon, like he did in one of the Holmes films? Holmes is at number 20 so, there’s the 20th anniversary sewn up!

Imagine Tarzan (35) swinging down on a vine and landing on a sandy jungle floor, near the beach … he gasps as he feels the sharp coral cutting into his bare feet. As he reaches down, what does he find … only a beautiful piece of rare jade! He smiles, the pain in his foot forgotten, as he thinks what a nice gift this will be for Jane. The few seconds it takes to come up with this piece of nonsense firmly lodges coral and jade at number 35.

A few moments to memorise them, and the facts stay with you forever!

Spend just a few seconds on each one and make something up. Be creative! Have fun! Just because you’re memorising something doesn’t mean it should be hard work or boring. Remember, close your eyes and really ‘see’ the images you’re creating. Make them real. Make those daffodils so sunny-bright it hurts your eyes! … and maybe you can smell their scent? See Prof. Marcus’ grubby woolly scarf lying on a burnished copper dish. Feel Tarzan’s pain as he lands on the sharp coral.

Immerse yourself in the elaborate images you create, and even though it’s only for a few moments, they will stay in your mind virtually forever, specially if you review your lists from time to time.

Note: This table is based on one on Wikipedia, and there are others, I’m sure, so if you want to get a different slant on the whole thing you could do a search on the Internet and see what comes up. By the time you take a look, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d come up with something else entirely to add to the whole thing, like a flag for each one, or a special song. Who knows what’s coming next, but hey, as long as they can find a way to market it, right?

Hallmark has long been associated with cards and gifts, and their site has a wedding anniversaries list of its own. It’s good to see that they also make a note of the fact that ivory makes an unethical gift choice in view of the rapidly declining elephant population.

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