Anniversary Gifts by Year: Traditional & Modern Chart (1–60)

Anniversary gifts by year give each wedding anniversary its own material: paper for the 1st, wood for the 5th, tin for the 10th, silver for the 25th, gold for the 50th and diamond for the 60th. Most lists have three answers for every year, a traditional gift, a modern gift and a gemstone.

Most people know paper, silver and gold. The chart below fills in the rest, from year 1 to year 60. Pick whichever column suits the person. Nobody is checking.

The highlighted rows are milestone years. After 30 the chart counts in fives, because that's how the tradition works. Nobody ever gave the 33rd a material.

Treat years 16 to 29 loosely. The 1937 jewelers' list gave a gift for every year up to the 20th, and the materials for 21 to 29 come from newer lists that don't always agree. The gemstone column follows the American Gem Society, which names a stone for every year up to 25 and then every fifth year.

A note on the 14th. Ivory is still on the traditional list, but the ivory trade is banned or tightly restricted in most countries. People give something ivory-colored instead, or go with the modern gift, gold jewelry.

The traditional list is the old one. Gift-giving for anniversaries caught on in English-speaking countries in the 1800s, and an 1858 edition of the Farmer's Almanack already paired paper with the 1st, wood with the 5th and tin with the 10th. In 1937 the American National Retail Jewelers Association published a longer list, with a gift for every year up to the 20th and then every fifth year. The Wikipedia article on wedding anniversaries has the sources.

The modern list came later and reads like a department store directory: clocks, appliances, desk sets, watches. It's practical. It also moves diamond jewelry up to year 10, which was good news for jewelers.

From the 40th on, the two lists agree. Ruby, sapphire, gold, emerald, diamond.

British lists differ in a few years. The 4th is linen or silk instead of fruit and flowers, the 6th is sugar instead of iron, the 8th adds salt to bronze, and the 9th is copper instead of pottery. The 1st and 2nd sometimes swap, so you'll see cotton for the 1st on older UK lists.

The UK also keeps going past 60. The 65th is blue sapphire, the 70th is platinum and the 80th is oak.

Paper is the easiest year to get right. A letter, a print of your vows, two tickets to something. Or a flipbook printed from the wedding video, so the gift is paper and the wedding at the same time. We keep a longer list of paper anniversary gifts, and a short piece on why the first year is paper.

Planting a tree together is the classic. A cutting board or a jewelry box with the wedding date burned into it works too. The modern pick is silverware, which makes sense if the drawer still has mismatched forks from before you moved in.

Tin bends without breaking, and that's the usual reading of year 10. A tin box with ten notes inside, one for each year, costs almost nothing and gets kept forever. The modern answer is diamond jewelry, and the 10th anniversary gemstone is diamond too.

Silver is in every column. A silver frame or engraved jewelry is the safe choice. If you're the one throwing the party, play the wedding video at some point. Half the guests won't have seen it in 25 years.

All three lists say ruby, so there's nothing to decide. Ruby earrings, a ring, or a dozen red roses if the budget isn't ruby-sized.

Gold, in every column. The kids usually plan the 50th, and the best thing they have is often a box of old home movies. A few seconds of the wedding film, once it's digitized, makes a flipbook that gets passed around the table all night.

Diamond, the last row on most charts. At 60 years the gift matters less than getting the whole family in one room. Bring a camera.

No. Use it to get an idea, then do whatever fits. If the 7th is wool and your partner hates sweaters, take copper, or the modern desk set, or skip all three.

Some couples drop the materials altogether and go back to the wedding itself. The vows in a frame, the first-dance song on vinyl, a dinner at the place you had the rehearsal. Those work in any year.