A milestone worth celebrating
4th Anniversary Gifts
Fruit and flowers are the traditional gifts and appliances the modern theme. Green is the traditional fourth anniversary colour.
A genuine light green rose, finished with a lustrous glaze and 24 karat gold, is a lasting way to mark your first four years together.
The meaning behind your year
Gift ideas
Fruit, Flowers and Blue Topaz: Six Anniversary Gift Ideas
A few traditional, a few practical, and all of them better with a note attached.
A morning at a pick-your-own farm
Spend a morning picking strawberries, cherries or apples, whatever’s in season near you, then turn the haul into jam that evening. Write your wedding date on the labels.
A fruit box, once a month
Order a seasonal box from a local orchard or farm to arrive once a month for the coming year. Each delivery is a small, sweet reminder of the day.
The bouquet you carried
Take a wedding photo to a florist and ask them to copy your bouquet, then set it on the table for dinner. You probably hardly looked at it on the day, so here’s a second chance.
Linen that softens with every wash
Good linen sheets or a linen tablecloth will be used for years and get softer each time they’re washed. Ask for your initials and wedding date to be embroidered in one corner.
An ice-cream maker for summer fruit
Appliances are the modern fourth anniversary gift, so choose one you’ll use together. An ice-cream maker turns a tray of mangoes or berries into sorbet, and it’s a lot more fun than a new kettle.
Blue topaz, from sky to London blue
Blue topaz is the 4th anniversary stone, from pale sky blue to the deep, inky London blue. At 8 on the Mohs scale it suits everyday earrings or a pendant, and it’s a December birthstone too.
The light green glazed rose
A light green rose to celebrate four years together
A genuine light green rose with a lustrous glazed finish, its petals and leaves edged in 24 karat gold and its stem plated in matching gold. Each rose retains its individual shape and character, so no two are exactly alike—a lasting reminder of your first four 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 30 cm long; display case 34 cm long
What the 4th means
Why fruit and flowers
for four years?
Fruit and flowers are the traditional gifts for a fourth wedding anniversary. Both are meant to be shared and enjoyed straight away, which suits a year when married life has found its rhythm.
Why fruit and flowers
From blossom to harvest
By the fourth year, the plans you made on your wedding day have started to turn into real things: a home that feels like yours, friends you share, routines that simply work. Fruit is the reward for looking after something over time, and that’s exactly what you’ve been doing.
Flowers are about noticing. A bunch brought home on an ordinary Tuesday shows you’re still paying attention four years in, and that counts for as much as any big gesture.
Where it began
The year the old lists skipped
Early etiquette books left this year out altogether. Emily Post’s 1922 Etiquette went from paper at one year straight to wood at five, and a 1910 New York guide, Weddings and Wedding Anniversaries, jumped from the leather wedding at three to the wooden wedding at five.
By 1937 the fourth had its gift. On 27 February that year, Brisbane’s Telegraph listed it as the fruit and flower anniversary, with guests bringing presents to match. Linen and silk, which both of those old lists kept for the twelfth year, now appear as fourth anniversary gifts on some lists, British ones among them.
Around the world
Silk, wax and amber
In Germany the fourth is the seidene Hochzeit, the silk wedding, and some lists call it the Bernsteinhochzeit, the amber wedding. In France it is the noces de cire, the wax wedding.
Dutch lists offer flowers, fruit, leather, wax or silk, and Swedish lists give flowers and fruit. In Japan the fourth can be a flower-and-fruit wedding, a silk or linen wedding, or even a book wedding.
4th anniversary symbols
Fruit, blue topaz and geraniums
Fruit, flowers and appliances
Fruit and flowers are the classic 4th anniversary gift on American lists, including Emily Post’s and Hallmark’s. Some lists, British ones among them, give linen and silk instead. Appliances are the modern alternative.
Blue topaz
Almost all blue topaz used in jewellery starts out colourless and is treated to turn it blue. The ancient Greeks believed topaz gave strength, a fitting wish for year four.
Geranium
Victorian flower books gave each geranium its own meaning. The ivy geranium meant ‘bridal favour’ and the oak-leaved one ‘true friendship’, but the scarlet kind could mean stupidity, so choose your colour with care.
Celebrating the 4th
Make a little time for the two of you
Walk the route of your first date again, book a table where you celebrated your first anniversary, or cook the dinner you made the first time you had friends over as a couple. Four years gives you plenty to remember, and a good reason to make time for each other.
If you like a theme, plan a day around flowers. Toowoomba’s Carnival of Flowers runs from September into early October, Floriade fills Canberra with spring colour for about a month, and in any season a botanic garden and a picnic rug will do nicely.
Whatever you plan, a few handwritten lines left on the pillow will be read more than once.
More romantic anniversary ideasWhat the 4th means to others
Letters that capture four years
At four years, you’re no longer newlyweds but a team, with your own habits and in-jokes. A short letter is a good way to say what you’ve noticed along the way. Here are three to borrow from, and three real stories about the fourth year and its traditions.
Letters to inspire your own
We wrote these as examples. Borrow any line you like.
Dear Sam,
I looked it up, and the fourth anniversary gift is fruit and flowers. You’re well ahead of me. You peel me a mandarin every time we’re stuck in traffic, and you’ve kept the basil on the kitchen windowsill alive for two whole summers, which I have never once managed.
This was the year of the new job, the long commute and the bathroom we still haven’t finished. You haven’t complained about the tiles stacked in the hallway. Well, not much.
Four years ago I thought I knew how much I loved you. I had no idea. Happy anniversary.
All my love,
Jess
Dear Anna,
On our wedding morning you made me iron my linen shirt twice, and I still turned up looking as if I’d slept in it. You told me I looked perfect. It was the first of many kind fibs, and I’ve been grateful for every one.
Four years on, you’re still the first person I want to tell when something good happens, and the only one I want to see when something doesn’t. You’ve made our little flat in Newtown feel like the best address in Sydney.
I’ve booked us a table for Saturday. I’ve also ironed the shirt. Please don’t look too closely.
Love,
Matt
To us, at four,
Four things we’ve learned in four years: we’re better in a crisis than on a quiet Sunday, neither of us can fold a fitted sheet, adopting Biscuit was a very good idea, and sorry is easier to say before bed than after.
Four things for year five: a weekend away with no laptops, one new recipe a month, more dancing in the kitchen, and no more arguing about whose turn it is to take the bins out.
Here’s to the next four, and all the fours after that.
Love,
Kit and Leo
Worth reading
Real stories and finds about the four-year mark. Links open in a new tab.
For their fourth anniversary, photographer Jordan wrote to his wife, Amy, about a very ordinary night: a drive to the shops for ice cream long after bedtime, singing in the car, cones with rainbow sprinkles, then the couch and their usual show. It’s a reminder that the small, unplanned evenings are often the ones worth writing down.
Tasmania has its own topaz story. The ‘Killiecrankie diamonds’ found in the creeks below Mount Killiecrankie on Flinders Island are really topaz, from translucent white to pale yellow, pink and blue. The spot was one of the first gem finds in Australia, in 1810, and the museum explains how the stones’ sparkle earned them their nickname.
Kate Greenaway’s illustrated 1884 book of flower meanings lists ten kinds of geranium, each with its own message. The nutmeg geranium stands for an expected meeting, the lemon geranium for an unexpected one, and the rose-scented kind simply says ‘preference’. A lovely book to browse before you choose flowers or write a card.
4th anniversary FAQ
