This week i was delighted to be asked to make a cake for a very special Diamond Wedding Anniversary. Diamond Weddings celebrate 60 years of Marriage, which i’m sure you’ll agree that 60 years of anything is impressive enough, let alone spending that much time with any one person. This one is particularly special personally as it is the Diamond Anniversary of my own grandparents, Kevin and Doreen Davies.
Wedding Anniversaries date back to Roman times when it became common for the husband to gift his wife with a silver wreath on their 25th anniversary and a gold wreath on their 50th anniversary. Later on, mainly in the twentieth century due to commercialism, the addition of more anniversaries being represented by materials became popular including Crystal (15th), Pearl (30th), Ruby (40th) etc…as well as less popular and glamorous materials such as Paper (2nd), Wool (7th) and Tin (10th). If you are someone who celebrates the latter examples then also see more modern ridiculous celebrations – #NationalBurgerDay, #NationalWearYourPyjamasToWorkDay and my personal favourite #NationalHelpAHorseDay – Which i will be celebrating on 26th April if anyone fancies it.
Anyway, back to the subject in hand. I was delighted to hear that my own Grandparents had received a congratulatory message from Queen Elizabeth to make their day even more special. These messages can be received most notably when turning 100 years old but also for 60th, 65th and 70th Wedding Anniversaries. This should potentially rise to 75th during our lifetime as life expectancy increases, but with people getting married later these days etc then this impressive landmark will potentially be reached less frequently in future!
Either way, 60 years of marriage is impressive whatever era you are in and it certainly shows that romance is very much still in the air for my Nan and Grandad, with many more happy years to come.
Congratulations Kev and Do!
