Anniversary Calculator

What the anniversary calculator does

Give this tool the date something began and it tells you when the next anniversary lands, how many days away it is, which anniversary it will be, and how long it has been since. The event can be anything that recurs once a year: a wedding, a first date, the day you started a job, the founding of a business.

The standout here is the anniversary number, because with anniversaries the number is the whole point. The 25th and the 50th are not just any years, and this tells you when one is coming.

How to use it

1. Enter Event Date. The date the thing you are marking first happened.

Press Calculate to see the next anniversary date, the days remaining, the anniversary number, and how long it has been since. Press Reset to clear it.

How it finds the next anniversary

It uses Moment.js, a date library, for the date work. It takes the month and day of your event and places them on the current year. If that day has already passed this year, it rolls forward to next year, and that is your next anniversary. Then it counts the days from today to that date, works out which anniversary it will be, and measures the full time elapsed since the event. Only the month and day set the anniversary, while the original year feeds the number and the time since.

Which anniversary it is, and its name

The number the tool gives you is your completed years plus one, because the next anniversary completes another year. So a couple who married 24 years ago are heading for their 25th. That matters more for anniversaries than for almost anything else, because the milestone years carry traditional names. The 1st is paper, the 25th is silver, the 40th is ruby, the 50th is golden, and the 60th is diamond. So when the tool tells you the 25th is coming up, it is telling you the silver anniversary is on its way, which is exactly the cue people want for planning something fitting.

An example

Say a couple married on 12 June 2001. The tool places 12 June on the current year, and if that date has already gone by, moves to 12 June next year, which becomes the next anniversary. It counts the days from today to that date, tells them it will be, say, their 25th, the silver one, and shows how long they have been married in years, months, and days. The countdown updates each time it is checked.

What people track with it

Wedding anniversaries are the obvious one, especially as a big milestone like the silver or golden approaches. People also use it for relationship anniversaries counted from a first date, for work anniversaries marking years at a company, for the founding date of a business, and for personal milestones such as a sobriety date. Anything you mark once a year, and want a countdown and a number for, fits.

Questions people ask

When is my next anniversary?

Enter the event date and the tool gives you the date of the next anniversary, with the number of days remaining until it.

Which anniversary will it be?

It is your completed years plus one, since the next anniversary finishes another year. So 24 years on, the next one is the 25th.

What are the traditional anniversary names?

A few of the well-known ones: the 1st is paper, the 25th is silver, the 40th is ruby, the 50th is golden, and the 60th is diamond.

Can I use it for things other than weddings?

Yes. Any yearly milestone works, such as a first date, a work anniversary, a business founding date, or a personal milestone. The tool just needs the date it started.

References

1. Moment.js, the JavaScript date library used to find the next anniversary and count the days. https://momentjs.com/