Anniversary Celebrations

An anniversary is commonly associated with weddings. Married persons who regard the date of their marriage as important may mark the yearly date of their wedding in some special way.

Broader groups in society, especially the families, and even more especially the children of such a couple, may help to celebrate such occasions; this is particularly common on the 40th, 50th, and 60th annivs.

Retailers (especially jewellers), sensing a profit opportunity, have encouraged gift-giving on such special days, and may often suggest a hierarchy of types of gifts to reflect the importance of longer years of marriage (and perhaps of greater ability to purchase more expensive gifts).

History of Traditional Wedding Anniversary Gifts

The earliest know references are to Silver (25th Wedding Anniversary) and Gold (50th Wedding Anniversary). These appear to originate in Middle Europe (Germanic Region) and involved the spouse giving his wife a silver garland when they had been married for 25 years. Some European countries also celebrate Twelve and a half years of marriage using Copper as the traditional wedding anniversary gift symbol.

We have found references to materials associated with specific years which follow the traditional wedding anniversary gift lists for the first 5 years of marriage and then every 5th year up to 25th and then 50th and 75th.

The earliest reference we have found other than the Silver or gold is to the 5th anniversary (Wood) which implies this became the traditional wedding anniversary gift material around 1875.

There are currently 2 Diamond Anniversaries, one at 60 and one at 75 years. The 75th anniversary is the original traditional diamond anniversary with the 60th being added when Queen Victoria (English Empire Monarch) celebrated her Diamond Jubilee on her 60th anniversary of accession to the throne in 1897 and this has since been adopted as an appropriate traditional wedding anniversary gift also.

In 1937 the American National Retail Jeweller Association issued a more comprehensive list of traditional wedding anniversary gift materials associated with each Anniversary year up to the 15th Anniversary and then each fifth year after that up to the 60th Anniversary.

Additional traditional wedding anniversary gift lists are issued from time to time; however the one quoted above is more or less the de-facto list for the Traditional names of Wedding Anniversaries.

Source:
History of Traditional Wedding Anniversary Gift List
http://www.anniversaryideas.co.uk/traditional_history.asp

South Dakota is a Midwestern state in the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota (Sioux) American Indian tribes. South Dakota was admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889. North Dakota was admitted on the same day. It is probably best known as the location of Mount Rushmore. Economy According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the gross state product of South Dakota was $29.4 billion as of 2004. The per capita personal income was $26,894 in 2004, the 37th highest in the nation and 13.08 percent below the national average. 13.2% of the population is below the poverty line. South Dakota does not collect a personal income tax. The state sales tax is 4 percent. Personal and property taxes are local taxes and are the primary source of funding for school systems, counties, municipalities and other local government units. Their administration is a local responsibility. The state revenue department does not collect or use property taxes, but it does centrally assess the property of large companies. Property owners in South Dakota may be taxed by two or more of the following units of government: cities, counties, townships, school districts, water districts, and, in some cases, units such as fire and sanitary sewer districts. South Dakota does not assess tax on intangible personal property, and there is no inheritance tax. State symbols State bird: Ring-necked Pheasant State flower: Pasque flower State tree: Black Hills Spruce State nicknames: Mount Rushmore State (official), Coyote state & Sunshine state (same nickname as Florida) State slogan: "Great Faces. Great Places." State mineral: Rose quartz State insect: Honey bee - Apis Mellifera L. State animal: Coyote State soil: Houdek State fish: Walleye State gemstone: Fairburn agate State dessert: Kuchen State drink: Milk State bread: Native American fry bread State grass: Western Wheatgrass State Sport: rodeo Source: Wikipedia.org - English