What are the Traditional Wedding Anniversary Gifts?

The traditional wedding anniversary gift categories are not universally agreed upon. Some years offer a choice, depending on which source you look at. Here is a conglomeration of several sources to show the range of categories considered standard for the most commonly celebrated years.

Some of these categories have particular types of gifts associated with them, and some may not seem obvious. Paper, for example, is often interpreted to mean a calligraphy poem, a book, or a framed paper of some importance to the couple, including a photograph. Cotton or calico can take the form of a special item of clothing or an especially attractive quilt or tapestry. Leather items include leather-bound books or albums, jewelry cases, wallets, purses, and garments.

Fruit and flower anniversary gifts include elaborate food baskets and live plants, and can cover both categories at once with the gift of a fruit bearing tree, such as a cherry. Wooden items included carved statuary, jewelry boxes and music boxes, but also live trees and wooden furniture. Iron items include garden furniture and other decorations, wine racks, lanterns, and decorative wrought iron pieces.

Copper can take the form of sculpture, canisters, vessels, lanterns, vases, or jewelry, while wool can be fine blankets, throws, shawls, or other attire or furnishings. Pottery can include dinnerware, and for the punster, the combination of pottery and willow could lead to willow ware, the popular pattern developed by Josiah Spode from a Chinese pattern. One could also turn to wicker, which is often made of willow, for an anniversary gift. There are many possibilities for each year, and it can be fun to see how creative one can be, merging tradition with personal taste and style.