Wedding anniversaries by year
Paper for the first, tin for the tenth, silver for the twenty-fifth. This is the traditional list behind "anniversary gifts by year": each named year has a material, and the traditional gift is made of it. Here are all 26 names, and a calculator for which one is next for you.
1st paper · 5th wood · 10th tin · 15th crystal · 20th china · 25th silver · 30th pearl · 40th ruby · 50th gold · 60th diamond · 70th platinum
Which anniversary is next?
The calculator needs JavaScript; the full list is below.
Every named anniversary, 1st to 70th
| Anniversary | Traditional name |
|---|---|
| 1st | Paper |
| 2nd | Cotton |
| 3rd | Leather |
| 4th | Fruit and flowers |
| 5th | Wood |
| 6th | Iron |
| 7th | Wool |
| 8th | Bronze |
| 9th | Pottery |
| 10th | Tin |
| 11th | Steel |
| 12th | Silk |
| 13th | Lace |
| 14th | Ivory |
| 15th | Crystal |
| 20th | China |
| 25th | Silver |
| 30th | Pearl |
| 35th | Coral |
| 40th | Ruby |
| 45th | Sapphire |
| 50th | Gold |
| 55th | Emerald |
| 60th | Diamond |
| 65th | Blue sapphire |
| 70th | Platinum |
How the years are counted
- The name belongs to the year you complete. The first anniversary comes one year after the wedding day, so on your tenth — ten years married — the name is tin. The number is simply this year minus the year of the wedding.
- Married on 29 February? In a year without one, the anniversary is kept on 28 February; the calculator above does the same.
- The wedding day itself is not an anniversary. For a wedding that is still ahead, the calculator shows the day and counts the first anniversary from it.
Years without a name
This list names every year from the 1st to the 15th, then every fifth year up to the 70th. The years in between — the 16th to the 19th, the 21st to the 24th, and so on — have no traditional name, and the calculator shows only the number.
Other lists fill those gaps, and "modern" lists swap in different themes for many years. Lists also differ between countries and between publishers. This page keeps to one traditional list: the US traditional names from Wikipedia's table of anniversary gifts, with the first material where it gives two (wool for the 7th, tin for the 10th). The 65th and 70th come from the UK column of the same table, which has no US entry for them. Nothing is added. The list stops at the 70th; the same table goes on to name the 75th and the 80th.
Anniversaries in Giftwise
This page belongs to Giftwise, an iPhone app for birthday reminders and gift ideas. With Giftwise Pro you can add an anniversary to a person, with the year if you want the years counted. It is reminded like a birthday — a week ahead, the day before and on the day — and the reminder gives the number of years.
Giftwise does not show the traditional name of the year; that is what this page is for. It keeps gift ideas and a wishlist for each person.
More dates
Last reviewed 12 October 2026