A milestone worth celebrating
46th Anniversary Gifts
Games are the traditional forty-sixth anniversary gift, with an original poem as a modern alternative.
Celebrate the love behind the milestone with a real rose preserved in 24K gold, a lasting keepsake of forty-six years together.
The meaning behind your year
Gift ideas
Games, Poetry and Lavender: Six Anniversary Gift Ideas
A few traditional, a few practical, and all of them better with a note attached.
A treasure hunt with a prize
Hallmark suggests a trail of clues around the house, with the last one leading to a hidden gift. Make every clue about your life together: the drawer with the old letters, the spot where the dog once buried the remote.
Learn bezique, Churchill’s game
Winston Churchill’s passion for the card game bezique is, as the International Churchill Society puts it, ‘well known and documented’. It’s a nineteenth-century French game for two players, using a double pack, so it makes a good winter project for the pair of you.
A big game, good seats
Hallmark’s splurge idea is a big-ticket sporting event. Get proper seats at the footy, the cricket or the races, and let them choose where you eat afterwards.
Your poem, framed
Once your original poem is written, have it hand-lettered or printed and framed for the hallway. A poem on the wall gets read by every visitor, which is either lovely or mortifying, depending on the poem.
A lavender hedge by the door
For the French lavender wedding, plant a row of lavender along the front path or in a big pot by the door. Every time you brush past it, you’ll get a small reminder of the day.
A new game to learn together
For parents or friends, Hallmark’s pick is a new board game or video game they can learn together. Pick one the grandchildren already love, and there’ll be eager teachers every school holidays.
The 24K gold-dipped rose
A gold rose to celebrate forty-six years together
A genuine rose preserved and finished in 24 karat gold over 60 steps and many months, then polished by hand. Each rose retains its individual shape and character, so no two are exactly alike—a lasting reminder of your first forty-six years together.
- Includes a certificate of authenticity
- Presented in a luxurious display case, inside a gloss white gift box bearing our debossed gold leaf logo
- A timeless symbol of love, preserved to keep forever
- Rose approximately 29 cm long; display case 34 cm long
What the 46th means
Why games
for forty-six years?
Games are Hallmark’s gift for a forty-sixth wedding anniversary. After forty-six years you know each other’s moves by heart, which only makes the competition more fun.
Why games
Rivals and teammates
Games suit a long marriage because they’re a safe place to argue. You can accuse each other of cheating at Scrabble, sulk over a lost hand of cards and be friends again by supper.
They also keep you sharp and talking. A running crossword race, a cribbage score that goes back decades, a Sunday game with the grandchildren: small habits like these give a marriage plenty to laugh about.
Where it began
An original poetry tribute
The early anniversary lists went straight from the ruby wedding at forty to the golden wedding at fifty. When librarians at the Chicago Public Library filled in every year in 1997, their modern gift for the forty-sixth was the most personal on the list: an ‘original poetry tribute’.
Hallmark’s list now gives games instead, which may come as a relief to anyone who hasn’t written a poem since school. Nothing says you can’t do both.
Around the world
Lavender in France, and in Tasmania
In France the forty-sixth is the noces de lavande, the lavender wedding, and Spanish lists call it the bodas de nácar, the mother-of-pearl wedding. The German, Dutch, Italian and Japanese lists leave it unnamed.
Australia has a lavender landmark of its own. Bridestowe Estate at Nabowla, in north-east Tasmania, is believed to be the world’s largest commercial planting of true lavender, and its rows flower in December and January.
46th anniversary symbols
Games, mother of pearl and lavender
Games and an original poem
Hallmark gives games for the 46th, and the Chicago Public Library’s 1997 list gives an original poem as the modern gift. One can cost as little as a pack of cards, and the other costs nothing but a quiet hour.
None set, though Spain says mother of pearl
English-language lists set no stone for the 46th. The Spanish choice, mother of pearl, is the shimmering lining of pearl-oyster shells and the same material pearls are made of, so it’s a quiet nod back to your pearl anniversary at thirty.
None set, so borrow France’s lavender
No English-language list names a flower for the 46th, so the French lavender wedding is a good place to start. Be warned that in Victorian flower language lavender meant distrust, so after forty-six years you may want to explain the choice in the card.
Celebrating the 46th
Make a little time for the two of you
Get the old board games down from the top of the wardrobe, book a table for trivia night at the local, or drive back to where you had your first picnic and see if the bench is still there. Forty-six years gives you plenty to remember, and a good reason to make time for each other.
Put the two gifts together. Each of you writes the other a short poem, four lines is plenty, then play a hand of cards for the right to read yours first. The loser still has to read theirs.
Whatever you play, let them win one round. Then tell them, in writing, why you’d still pick them for your team.
More romantic anniversary ideasWhat the 46th means to others
Letters that capture forty-six years
Forty-six years in, you know exactly how competitive the other one gets over a game of cards, and you married them anyway. A letter is a chance to tell them what you admire, which is a much longer list than what you put up with. Here are three to borrow from, and three real stories about year forty-six.
Letters to inspire your own
We wrote these as examples. Borrow any line you like.
Dear Len,
Forty-six years ago you beat my brother at arm-wrestling at our engagement party, and he has never forgiven either of us. You’ve been winning things ever since: the meat tray at the bowls club, three arguments about the caravan awning and, one memorable Christmas, Monopoly against all four grandchildren at once.
You’re a terrible winner and a worse loser, and I wouldn’t swap you for anyone.
Tonight it’s Scrabble. I’ve been practising. Be afraid.
All my love,
Pat
Dear Sue,
When we met, at a church dance in Toowoomba, you told me I danced like a filing cabinet. You were right, and you married me anyway.
In forty-six years you’ve kept this family together through three moves, two redundancies and one very long renovation. You still beat me at gin rummy most nights, and you still let me think it was close.
I’m told the gift this year is games. So here’s my offer: one game of cards every night for the next forty-six years. Loser makes the tea.
Love,
Geoff
Dear Wendy,
I’m told the modern gift for forty-six years is an original poem. I have tried. Please be kind.
Forty-six years and the kettle’s still on,
The garden’s a jungle, the hedges are gone,
The grandkids are louder, the stairs are a climb,
But I’d marry you over and over each time.
It isn’t Shakespeare, but it’s all mine, and so are you.
Love,
Alan
Worth reading
Real stories and finds about the forty-six-year mark. Links open in a new tab.
Winston and Clementine Churchill married in September 1908, and this short wire report notes that their forty-sixth anniversary in 1954 passed without any special celebration. They spent the day at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s official country residence, hosting the Governor of Jamaica, Sir Hugh Foot, and Lady Foot at lunch. A reminder that even the busiest couples can mark the day quietly.
Iris Ruth Pastor and her husband met again at their tenth high-school reunion and married the following year. For their forty-sixth anniversary she wrote one piece of advice for every year, from small courtesies to ‘Always have his back’, with plenty of jokes about gym bags and diets along the way. Quick to read and easy to borrow from. (A few mildly cheeky asides.)
Charles Denny married Blanche Francis at the parish church in Bridestowe, Devon, in 1913. When he set up a farm in Tasmania to grow true lavender from seed he had brought back from France, he named it Bridestowe Estate in honour of her birthplace. This short biography follows the farm from those first plantings to 1981, when it was producing 15 per cent of the world’s lavender oil.
46th anniversary FAQ
