The anniversary card is the hardest one in the shop to write, because the man opening it already knows everything you might tell him. There’s no news to break and no achievement to mark; there’s only the year itself, and whether you can say something about it that’s true and not a repeat of last year. British anniversaries at least come with their own vocabulary — paper for the first, wooden for the fifth, silver at twenty-five, ruby at forty, golden at fifty and diamond at sixty — and those names earn their keep by giving you something concrete to hang a sentence on. What follows is written from a wife to her husband, in an even tone rather than a grand one: short lines for a card, wishes for the early years, messages for silver, ruby and golden, something for a year that has been hard, a few words for the table, and a note worth sending in the middle of an ordinary working day.
Short anniversary wishes for a card
Another year, and still the easiest decision I ever made. Happy anniversary.
Same house, same argument about the heating, same answer if you asked me again today. Happy anniversary, love.
To the man who still makes the tea properly. Here’s to another year of it.
Happy anniversary. Nothing much has changed, which is exactly what I was hoping for.
I’d marry you again on considerably less notice. Happy anniversary.
Thank you for this year. Thank you for all the others as well. Happy anniversary.
Still my favourite person to sit in silence with. Happy anniversary.
Happy anniversary. Not a wasted year among them.
The first few years — paper, and then wooden
Our first anniversary is the paper one, which seems about right: everything we own that matters is still a form, a receipt or a scrap with a plan written on it. Next year we’ll get something with a bit more weight to it. Happy anniversary.
One year married, and the only surprise is how little of it felt like an adjustment. Happy paper anniversary — I fully intend to be here for the wooden one and everything after it.
They call the first one paper because it’s supposed to be fragile. Ours has been nothing of the sort, and I’d like that on the record. Thank you for a very good year, and happy anniversary.
Five years, and apparently that makes it wooden. Seems fair: it holds weight, it needs looking after, and it’s improved with age. Happy anniversary — I wouldn’t swap a single one of them.
Happy wooden anniversary. Five years in and we’ve got as far as knowing which of us is better at what, which is more progress than most people manage. Here’s to the next lot.
Three years married, no fixed traditions yet, and only one rule that seems to be holding: whoever is up first makes the tea. Happy anniversary to the man who is nearly always up first.
Two years in and I still catch myself using the word husband and enjoying it rather more than I ought to. Happy anniversary. Thank you for a year that was mostly easy and entirely worth it.
The early anniversaries are meant to be the light ones — paper, then cotton, then leather, all of it small enough to fit in a bag. What we’ve actually built in that time isn’t small at all. Happy anniversary, love.
Silver — twenty-five years married
Twenty-five years today. A quarter of a century of the same voice in the next room, and I haven’t once wished it was a different one. Happy silver anniversary.
Happy silver wedding anniversary. Twenty-five years, three houses, one extremely long argument about a bathroom, and I’d do the whole thing again in the same order.
Silver, then. Twenty-five years is long enough that most of my life has had you in it, which is a strange thing to work out on a Tuesday morning and a very good thing to know.
Twenty-five years married. People ask how, and the honest answer is that you’ve been kinder than I’ve deserved for large stretches of it. Happy anniversary, and thank you.
The silver anniversary is the one where everybody expects a party. What I actually want is a long lunch, no timetable and you in a decent mood. Twenty-five years and my requirements have got simpler. Happy anniversary.
Happy anniversary. Twenty-five years ago I had no real idea what I was agreeing to, and it’s turned out considerably better than the version I had in mind. Here’s to the next stretch of it.
Silver suits us. It isn’t showy, it wants a polish now and then, and it lasts. Twenty-five years, and I’m still glad it’s you. Happy anniversary.
Ruby and golden — forty and fifty years
Forty years. They call this one ruby, which is a good deal more dramatic than either of us, but the sentiment stands: still here, still yours. Happy anniversary.
Happy ruby anniversary. Forty years married and this house has never once been quiet in a bad way. Thank you for that, and for the rest of it.
Forty years ago you said yes to a girl who didn’t know the first thing about any of this. You’ve been patient about that ever since. Happy anniversary, love.
Fifty years married. Golden, apparently, and for once the name doesn’t feel like an overstatement. Half a century of you, and I wouldn’t alter the arrangement. Happy anniversary.
Happy golden anniversary. Fifty years and we’ve never once had a proper conversation about which of us is right, which I suspect is the entire secret. Here’s to carrying on exactly as we are.
Fifty years today. The children think it’s remarkable. We know it was mostly a great many ordinary mornings, one after another, and that this is precisely what makes it remarkable. Happy anniversary.
Ruby at forty, golden at fifty, and diamond if we’re lucky enough to get there. I intend to be extremely stubborn about the last one. Happy anniversary, and thank you for all of it.
Forty years, and my favourite part of it is still the bit nobody else sees — the kitchen at half past six, the radio on, neither of us saying much. Happy ruby anniversary.
After a hard year
This hasn’t been our best year and I’m not going to pretend otherwise on a card. What I will say is that you never once made it harder than it had to be, and I noticed every single time. Happy anniversary.
Happy anniversary. It’s an odd thing to mark a year neither of us would choose to repeat, but we got to the end of it together, and that seems worth putting in writing.
We’ve had easier years and we’ll have easier years again. This one you carried more than your share of, quietly, and without ever bringing it up afterwards. Thank you. Happy anniversary.
I know today feels like a formality this year. Even so: I’m glad it was you in that corridor with me, and I’m glad it’s you tonight. Happy anniversary.
Another anniversary, and this time no fuss and no plans, because neither of us has it in us. What I do have is the certainty that I picked the right person for the difficult years, not just the good ones. Happy anniversary.
Happy anniversary. We haven’t been at our best with each other lately and I’m at least half to blame for that. I’d still choose you, today and in a bad mood, over anybody else on their best day.
This year asked more of you than any of the others and you never once said so. I’m saying it for you. Thank you, and happy anniversary — next year we’re owed an easy one.
A few words to say at dinner
I’ll keep this to two sentences, because you hate this sort of thing. Every year I understand a little better what I actually agreed to, and every year I’m more glad that I did. Here’s to us.
A quick word before the plates arrive. There’s nobody I’d rather be sitting opposite on a Wednesday evening with nothing much to say. That, as far as I can tell, is the whole of it. Happy anniversary.
One thing, and then we can talk about something else. You have never once made me feel like the difficult one, including the years when I plainly was. Thank you. To us.
Before the wine goes round: I don’t think either of us really knew what we were signing up for, and I think that was probably for the best. It’s turned out well. To many more of them.
You’ve sat through a lot of my speeches, so this one is short. The best decision I’ve made, I made without much information and entirely on instinct, and it was you. Cheers, love.
I’ve been asked to say something and I’m going to say the true thing rather than the nice one: you’re easier to live with than I am, everyone at this table knows it, and I’m grateful for it daily. To us.
To send during the day, while he is at work
Happy anniversary. No plans, no fuss, I just wanted it said before the day gets away from the pair of us.
Thinking about the register office and how badly the heating was working that morning. Happy anniversary — see you tonight.
Whatever sort of day you’re having, it’s our anniversary and I’m on your side. Ring me when you get five minutes.
Happy anniversary, love. Don’t buy anything on the way home. Just come home.
Same date, same feeling, considerably better kitchen. Happy anniversary. Hope the morning’s being kind to you.
One line before the meetings start: I’d do the whole thing again. Happy anniversary.
Happy anniversary. I’ve booked nothing and I expect nothing, other than you, at a reasonable hour.
It’s the wooden one today, apparently. Nothing wooden has been acquired. See you at six — happy anniversary.
Questions and answers
Is it true you can ask for a card from the King for a diamond wedding anniversary?
Yes, and it is one of the few genuinely pleasant pieces of officialdom left. Congratulatory messages are sent for the sixtieth wedding anniversary, the sixty-fifth, the seventieth and every year after that, as well as for a hundredth birthday. It is not automatic: somebody has to apply, usually a son, daughter or grandchild, there is a form, and evidence of the marriage is normally wanted, so it is worth starting well ahead of the date rather than in the week of it. One thing worth knowing if you are the one writing the card. If a message is coming, do not mention it in what you write, because the whole pleasure of it is being handed over on the day itself.
How do you write an anniversary card for a year in which nothing much happened?
You write about the nothing. Anniversary cards go wrong when they reach for events, because most years do not supply any, and a card listing a holiday and a new boiler reads as a summary rather than a message. The material in an ordinary year is the routine: who gets up first, what he always says when the football is on, the fact that he has made the tea every single morning without once being asked to. Naming one small specific habit does more work than any grand statement, because it proves you were paying attention during the stretch when nothing was going on. Save the sweeping lines for the years that earn them, and let the quiet ones be about the quiet.
We had a small register office wedding and no anniversary habits at all. Where do you start?
Start with something repeatable, because a tradition is only something you have done twice. Couples who mark the day well usually settle on one fixed element and improvise around it: the same walk, the same meal cooked at home, the card handed over at breakfast rather than saved for the evening. Cards are the easiest habit to keep because they accumulate, and a drawer with a long run of them in it becomes the record of a marriage that nobody set out to write. It matters far less what you choose than whether it survives a bad year, a working weekday and a stretch when neither of you can be bothered. Anything that needs booking or planning tends not to.
He will open the card with the children in the room. How much is too much?
Write it so that a ten-year-old reading over his shoulder would find it boring. That is a lower bar than it sounds and it rules out very little: gratitude, a shared memory, a remark about the state of the garden and a plain statement that you would do it again all survive being read aloud by somebody small and unimpressed. What does not survive is anything that turns the moment into a performance, and anything the children could cheerfully repeat to a grandparent. If there is something private to say, it does not belong in a card that will stand on the shelf for a fortnight. Send that separately, in the middle of the day, where it gets read once by the right person.
This is a second marriage. Do you count from the wedding, or from when you met?
From the wedding, if only because you have to count from something and anything else needs explaining every year. Plenty of couples who were together a long time before marrying keep two dates, the anniversary proper and a private one nobody else marks, and that works perfectly well provided the traditional names stay attached to the official one. Where it gets awkward is the number itself, since a fifth anniversary after fifteen years together can feel like a serious undercount. The fix is to say so in the card rather than to fudge it. Put the wooden year and the real one in the same sentence and the joke more or less writes itself.