Anniversary Flowers in Istanbul: Choose by the Year, Then Get the Hour Right

Turkish couples mark an evlilik yıl dönümü quietly, dinner out, a gift at home, a phone call from the children. Unlike a wedding or a nişan engagement, both of which come with real expectations we cover in our engagement guide, an anniversary carries no fixed customs about what must be sent. That makes it easy to get right and easy to get wrong for a purely practical reason: the flowers arrive at an empty flat while both people are at work.

Celebrating your anniversary on a trip to Istanbul? Flowers can be waiting at your hotel, see send flowers to a hotel in Istanbul. For a partner at home in Istanbul, use our send flowers to Istanbul page.

Choosing by the year

The year-by-year tradition is a Western one rather than a Turkish one, but it gives a useful structure and it reads clearly to a Turkish recipient too. A first anniversary suits the colours of the wedding itself, white and soft pink. The middle years, five to fifteen, are where mixed arrangements with roses and lilies work best, something fuller than a straightforward bouquet. A twenty fifth calls for white and silver tones, white roses or a white orchid. A fiftieth goes to gold and deep warm colours. If you want a quieter touch, match the number of stems to the number of years, it lands better than any card sentiment.

The hour matters more than the flowers

We deliver in nine fixed windows, and for an anniversary the last one, 18:00 to 22:00, is usually the right choice: both partners are home, the flowers are the first thing that happens in the evening rather than something found on the doorstep at seven in the morning. The alternative, deliberately, is a morning delivery to a workplace, which turns the gesture public. Both work, but they are different gifts, so choose consciously rather than accepting whatever window is default. If the delivery goes to an office, give the company name and floor as well as the street, for the reason set out in our hotel and hospital guide.

What to write, in Turkish

If the recipient is Turkish and you are writing from abroad, two short lines do more than a paragraph in English. Evlilik yıl dönümünüz kutlu olsun is the formal happy anniversary, and nice senelere, meaning many more years to come, is what people actually say to each other. We write the card exactly as you type it, Turkish characters included.

Our romance collection is where most anniversary orders start, and the red rose guide covers why the classic still works after twenty years.