Thursday, August 26, 2010

Anniversary Gifts: Celebrating Years Of Pure Devotion

By Jeff Smith

Marriage brings about many tests for every individual who has taken that dive into a long lasting commitment that must be upheld for life. Anniversaries, no matter what year, are to simply celebrate the couple's success in overcoming their challenges together. Anniversary gifts have been known to commemorate these years and can range from traditional to modern versions representing each year of shared love and heartaches by every married couple.

There are the traditionally accepted gifts that change as the years go by, and in the first five years of marriage this is celebrated with gifts such as the first year being paper, second cotton, third leather, fourth fruit and flowers, and fifth being wood. Modern alternatives of these gifts replace these respectively with plastic, calico and cotton, glass and crystal, silk and linen, and silverware.

Gifts for the fifth up to the tenth year also have traditional set ones, along with modern alternatives for each one. The modern ones are iron, brass, pottery, willow, and aluminum, traditionally offset by gifts of candy, wool and copper, bronze, pottery, and tin.

Eleventh to fifteenth year marks a celebration that has varied gifts ranging from traditional silk, lace, ivory, steel, and crystal. Modern alternatives are perfume or cologne, barometers, clocks, watches, and fine linen.

Fine china is the traditional and modern gift for a couple that reaches twenty years in a solid relationship, which symbolizes their partnership as both delicate and classic. Alternately, another modern gift that symbolizes solid and unchanging love is the gift of platinum.

Well known to many, the silver wedding anniversary makes a big mark in the lives of many couples, representing twenty five years in a solid and lasting relationship that will steadily strive to make it to the big fifty years. Silver gifts are the traditional and modern standards for this anniversary year.

As the years go by and the couple makes it to thirty years, it calls for another celebration with gifts of traditional and modern pearl. In the U. S., however, white diamonds are an alternative since this is the halfway mark towards the actual diamond year.

By the fortieth year of marriage this is considered the year of the ruby, marking both traditional and modern gifts based on the ruby. Semiprecious and passionate, this is where the marriage and romance is at its peak when a couple has been through so much together, their relationship has bonded even tighter in trust and love.

Celebrated by a renewal of vows, the fiftieth year is well known the world over, being the big golden wedding anniversary that many couples rarely reach together. Because this type of anniversary is very special in the hearts of many, including children and grandchildren, it is celebrated heartily with gifts of gold.

As rare as the yellow diamond, the couple that celebrates their sixtieth wedding anniversary together is truly blessed. The traditional and modern merge once again in agreement that this year requires a celebration with yellow diamonds.

The seventy fifth anniversary, being one of the biggest milestones in the history of marriages, is celebrated with gift combinations of gold and diamonds, sometimes with another wedding to renew the couple's vows. This is the pinnacle of anniversaries where anniversary gifts turn into treasured family heirlooms to be passed on to the next generations of couples who also wish to have their relationships last through the challenges of time.

About the Author:

0 comments:

Post a Comment