‘You must promise to be with us for our silver wedding D.V. which will be in four years,’ wrote Queen Victoria in February 1861 to her daughter Vicky in Prussia, where her husband had just become Crown Prince. But D was not V, and dear Albert was dead before the year was out. I think the German connection is relevant here to the use of silver wedding, for mother and daughter would both have been familiar with the notion of a silberhochzeit.
Silver wedding had not long been in English usage, although, in the late 18th century, some people aware of German customs used the phrase silver feast. I was thinking of silver weddings because of something odd that I heard on the wireless. Paddy O’Connell referred to a ‘25-year anniversary’. Only hours before I’d heard someone else talk of a two-year anniversary.
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