There are plenty of resources that quote what material or name is associated with specific wedding anniversaries. Have you ever asked why this material is chosen? We did and effectively this web site is the result!

We are constantly researching the reasons why a material is associated with a Wedding Anniversary and have published what we have found out to date on the pages below;

The majority of these lists converge on the major anniversaries e.g. 25th is Silver and 50th is the Golden anniversary across the different lists. I suspect the reason for this is that these wedding anniversaries have created the tradition and an alternative material would not be accepted and hence not be used.

Earliest Mentions of Wedding Anniversaries

Anniversaries have been celebrated effectively since the year after the wedding ceremony was invented and references can be found in records stretching back centuries.

Wedding Anniversaries were popularised during Queen Victoria reign (English Monarch, 1837-1901) It was observed that the Royal Family were marking the anniversaries of their wedding day which was mimicked into high society and thus filtered down into general society.

Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens cites a celebration for an 8th wedding Anniversary in Chapter 14 (June 1838) highlighting the fact that not only were the major jubilees celebrated but also the other years.

Golden Wedding Celebration

The earliest reference in printed form we have found to a Wedding Anniversary having a symbol associated with it is from The Morning Chronicle Issue No 17572 published in 1825 this refers to Karl August the Grand Duke of the Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach region and his wife Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt who had married on 3rd October 1775 and celebrated 50 years of marriage in 1825.

Silver Wedding Celebration

The earliest reference to the Silver Wedding we have found is in The Era first published on Sunday 29th December 1839.

Our favourite reference is from The Belfast Newsletters Issue No.11797 originally printed 27th October 1852; and recounts the writer finding a Golden Wedding celebration ongoing whilst he walked the streets of a German town.