The first anniversary of the wedding day gives occasion for a paper wedding; the second is cotton; the third leather.  The fourth is omitted; the fifth is the wooden wedding; next to be observed is the tin, celebrating the close of the first decade.  The next skip is to the china, when twenty years have elapsed; and the quarter century of wedded happiness is recognized in the silver wedding.

The wooden and tin weddings are occasions of great hilarity, and mean a general frolic.  The former began years ago with the gift of a rolling-pin and a step-ladder.  The gifts are of those practical, useful articles that replenish the kitchen, though handsome gifts are of course easily selected.  Carved wooden boxes, handsome picture frames, articles of furniture, are at the service of those who choose to pay their price.

Invitations to a wooden wedding are sometimes written or printed on birch bark or thin strips of wood, or are engraved on cards which imitate wood in appearance.  The refreshments have been served on wooden plates procured from the grocer.  So far as possible the wooden idea is carried out.

Tin Weddings.—­Gifts for the tin wedding are of course in that material, and there is a wide range of choice.  The tinsmith is often called upon to manufacture fantastic articles, anything to raise a laugh.  Thus one couple were adorned, the wife with a set of tin curls, the man with a tin hat.  A tin purse enclosing a check for “tin” was once presented to a tin bride on the occasion of her tin wedding.  The freakish fancy of one’s friends is generally much in evidence at a tin wedding.  As at the wooden wedding, the bride cuts a wedding cake decorated with a monogram formed of the initials of her own and her husband’s name, and the year of the wedding and of its anniversary.  Refreshments may be served from tin dishes, and the guests provided with tin plates.

[746 Mothers’ remedies]

The Silver Wedding.—­Cards for a silver wedding are printed in silver, or in black on silvered cards—­the former being in better taste.  The form—­which may be used for all with the variation of but one word—­that designating the nature of the anniversary, is as follows: 

1885 Mr. and Mrs. Smith 1910
request the pleasure of your company on
Thursday, February the twenty-fourth,
at eight o’clock. 
Silver Wedding. 
George Smith Anna Hall

As the couple who celebrate are generally in the prime of life, and their friends of about the same age, a silver wedding is usually a very enjoyable function.  The many beautiful articles now made in silver afford a wide range of choice in the way of gifts, both valuable and in those inexpensive trifles that please everybody because so artistic.  Silverware is marked with the initials of the married pair, often enclosed in a true lover’s knot.  Toilet articles, pomade jars, silver jewelry, spoons, silver parasol and umbrella handles, picture frames in silver, rings and bracelets, besides the manifold pieces for table use, offer a wide individual range in choice and price.