Wedding anniversary gifts are an odd tradition. I don’t mean that it’s strange to give gifts when there’s something to celebrate. But tradition provides us with a long list of appropriate items to give as anniversary presents each year. From the first anniversary (paper) to the 70th (platinum) we are told exactly what we should be buying each year.
It’s true most people don’t observe these traditions nowadays, that’s if they ever did. Where the idea came from in the first place is unclear, but it has evolved over the years until a whole new list of gifts has emerged. These new ‘traditions’ are more modern and practical gifts for each anniversary, and ones which are more readily available on modern high streets.
So where once you might have received paper for your first anniversary, the appropriate gift nowadays would be a clock. The precious gems are earlier on the list so diamond has changed from a 60th anniversary gift to a 10th, and instead of waiting 30 years for pearl jewellery, you would now only have to wait 12.
In fact, pearl is an interesting one as it appears twice on the modern gift list, at both 12 and 80 years. The original pearl anniversary, the 30th, has also been replaced by diamond, which actually appears a total of eight times!
Maybe what we should be doing is buying different qualities of the gems each time. So for a 12th anniversary you could buy freshwater pearl jewellery. Freshwater pearls are less rare and therefore less expensive than saltwater pearls, which might be more appropriate for the later anniversary. As for diamonds, some jewellers are now producing items especially for anniversaries. Odd combinations like diamonds set in tin, combining both the traditional and modern gifts for 10 years.