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The 4th Anniversary Gift Is Fruit and Flowers

The traditional fourth anniversary gift is fruit and flowers on the American list, and linen or silk on British ones.

See the gift ideas Every year’s gift

US traditional: fruit and flowers · UK lists: linen, silk

A woman’s face in fine line, ringed by a wreath of birth-month flowers, as an engraved pendant

What Does the 4th Anniversary Gift Mean?

Fruit and flowers are what a marriage looks like when it has had time to grow: the fourth year is often the one with a garden, a child or a first real home. The trouble is that the gift wilts. The usual answer is to keep the flowers and lose the vase: a fruit tree to plant, a flower that is printed, pressed or engraved. The 4th is not in Emily Post’s Etiquette (1922), which listed only eight anniversaries. It comes from the expanded year-by-year list generally credited to American jewelers in 1937 (history).

Checked against Emily Post, Wikipedia and Hallmark on .

What Are Good 4th Anniversary Gift Ideas?

  1. A fruit tree for the garden. A lemon in a pot if there is no garden. It will still be fruiting at the twentieth.
  2. Your wedding flowers, again. The same flowers as the bouquet, which most florists can match from a photo.
  3. Their birth flower, kept. Every month has a traditional flower. A pendant, a print or a pressed frame keeps it from wilting.
  4. A fruit-of-the-month subscription. Twelve deliveries, so the anniversary lasts the whole fifth year.
  5. Pressed flowers from the wedding day. If anyone kept the bouquet, a framer can press and mount it.
  6. Linen, for the UK list. A linen tablecloth or bedding, if you are following the British list.

What We Make for the 4th

Our engraved portrait pendant has a birth-flower wreath style: a fine-line portrait from one photo, ringed with the flower of the month you choose (their birth month, or the month you married). It is the version of fruit and flowers that does not die by Friday. It is laser engraved on a 1 inch pendant cut to the shape of the design, in stainless steel, gold plated or sterling silver.

A woman’s face in fine line, ringed by a wreath of birth-month flowers, as an engraved pendant
Birth-flower wreath pendant
Engraved in steel, gold plated or sterling
From $59
A couple painted as an Art Nouveau panel among lilies, in a black floating frame
Framed canvas
Matte canvas in a floating frame, four frame colors
From $79
A couple painted in a swirling oil style against a city waterfront, printed as a gallery-wrapped canvas
Gallery-wrapped canvas
Matte canvas over a 1.25″ wooden frame
From $59

4th Anniversary Questions

What is the traditional 4th anniversary gift? +

Fruit and flowers on the American list. British lists give linen and silk instead.

Which flower should I choose? +

Their birth-month flower is the usual choice, or the flower of the month you married. We wrote up every month’s flower, with the meanings checked against 19th-century flower dictionaries, in our birth month flowers guide.

Is the pendant real gold? +

The gold option is gold plated over stainless steel, not solid gold. The sterling option is solid .925 silver.

Other Anniversaries

Every year from the 1st to the 60th, with the US and UK lists side by side, is on the anniversary gifts by year page.

A Portrait of the Years So Far

Upload one photo of the two of you, or everyone. You see a watermarked proof before anything prints.

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