What is the diamond wedding anniversary?

Sixty years of marriage is the diamond wedding. It is the first anniversary that qualifies for a message from the King, and that single fact drives most of what people actually want to know about it.

The material, for once, is not in dispute

Debrett's gives diamond for the sixtieth. We publish no competing modern value for that year, because we have not verified one, and we are not going to invent one.

The message from the King, and exactly who qualifies

GOV.UK gives the qualifying years as the "60th (diamond) anniversary, 65th anniversary, 70th (platinum) anniversary, anniversary each year following their 70th".

Sixty is the first year that qualifies; nothing before it does. The rule also does not stop at seventy, and the platinum wedding page explains what that means in practice.

The custom is not ancient. royal.uk records that "the tradition of sending a message of congratulations to those celebrating their 100th birthday and 60th wedding anniversaries began with King George V".

How to apply, and the deadlines that catch people out

The message does not arrive on its own. Somebody has to apply, and the windows open rather than close as the date nears, so applying too soon is what gets turned away. The application itself is made through GOV.UK's anniversary message service:

• Online: from five weeks before. GOV.UK says an online application can be made no earlier than five weeks before the anniversary date.
• By post: no sooner than three weeks before the celebration, per GOV.UK. royal.uk adds that "a two week extension can be allowed for holiday periods i.e Christmas and Easter".
• You need a copy of the marriage certificate. GOV.UK says to send one with the application, and that if you cannot supply it you contact the General Register Office, who confirm the marriage details directly with the Anniversaries Office.
• Belated messages are possible for up to six months afterwards, per GOV.UK. If the day has already passed, this is the line that matters.

The message itself is free. GOV.UK lists the service as free, and royal.uk states that "no charge is made by Buckingham Palace to send a message of congratulations from The King, however, there may be a fee when applying with the records office". So if anyone quotes you a price for arranging one, they are charging you for the paperwork, not for the card.

The gift, when the message is the free part

The Royal message is free and it is not a gift, so the present sits alongside it rather than instead of it. Sixty years in, the people giving are usually children and grandchildren, and the honest constraint is that the couple already own everything practical.

Diamond itself is the direct reading and an expensive one. Diamond-cut glass, a piece of jewellery already in the family reset, or something that simply is not about the material at all are all read correctly at this distance. What lands is specificity - a picture, a date, a name - rather than carat.

The year before and the year after: gold at fifty gets no message at all; the sixty-fifth is the next that does. Look up any year with the free anniversary lookup.

Qualifying years, both application windows, the marriage-certificate requirement, the six-month belated limit and the free-of-charge position from GOV.UK; the holiday extension, the fuller charging sentence and the George V origin quoted from the Royal Family's own anniversary messages page at royal.uk, read 2 September 2026; anniversary material from Debrett's.

Written by Craig Fearn, Printed Weddings.