As Prince William and Kate prepare to celebrate their 1st wedding anniversary, we take a look at what each year is traditionally represented by.

After the big day, each year the couple will celebrate their wedding anniversary in different ways. Some will choose to reminisce about their wedding day in a low-key affair. From most reports, this seems to be what William and Kate are planning to do.

Others will opt to splash out each year to celebrate another year of happy marriage. There are no right or wrong ways – it’s a personal choice.

Wedding anniversaries are traditionally represented by all kinds of materials from paper for the 1st anniversary to precious metals.

Here’s a list of the main wedding anniversary traditions:

• 1st wedding anniversary – Paper
• 2nd wedding anniversary – Cotton
• 3rd wedding anniversary – Leather
• 4th wedding anniversary – Linen
• 5th wedding anniversary – Wood
• 6th wedding anniversary – Iron
• 7th wedding anniversary – Copper
• 8th wedding anniversary – Bronze
• 9th wedding anniversary – Pottery
• 10th wedding anniversary – Tin or Aluminium

• 11th wedding anniversary – Steel
• 12th wedding anniversary – Silk
• 13th wedding anniversary – Lace
• 14th wedding anniversary – Ivory
• 15th wedding anniversary – Crystal
• 20th wedding anniversary – China
• 25th wedding anniversary – Silver
• 30th wedding anniversary – Pearl or Ivory
• 35th wedding anniversary – Coral
• 40th wedding anniversary – Ruby
• 45th wedding anniversary – Sapphire
• 50th wedding anniversary – Golden
• 55th wedding anniversary – Emerald
• 60th wedding anniversary – Diamond
• 70th wedding anniversary – Platinum

There are some slight variations to the list above and they differ by country. Some years are easier to buy anniversary gifts for. Others prove quite a challenge when trying to come up with a suitable anniversary present! You might have to be quite creative with some years!

We wonder what Paper gifts William has bought Kate. Let us know if you have any suggestions for what he might buy her for their first wedding anniversary!?

Monday sees the 448th anniversary of  William Shakespeare’s birth. To mark his birthday, how about giving your stag or hen party a ‘Shakespeare’ theme?

Here’s a few ideas for a ‘Shakespeare’ themed party:

Dress up for the occasion

- Pick your favourite play or get each person to dress as a different character from any play. Alternatively, go with general Elizabethan era style costumes with lots of embroidery, braids and patterns.
- Get masks of the Bard himself and wear these

Shakespeare treasure hunt

Challenge the group to a treasure hunt where the skill is in ‘interpreting’ the list of items to bring back, which might include such things as:
1) “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse” (Richard III)

2) “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” (Julius Caesar)

3) “A toothpick from the furthest inch of Asia” (Much Ado About Nothing)

4) “Give me my long sword, ho!” (Romeo and Juliet)

5) “The world’s mine oyster” (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

Themed food

Shakespeare mentioned quite a lot of food in his writing.  To get into the spirit of things, you could serve versions of dishes that he mentioned in his plays. For example, roasted eggs (deviled eggs) dates, quinces, good bread, cheese, onions, and garlic. Of course, all this needs to be accompanied by plenty of ale and wine!

How much do you know about Shakespeare?

Create a Shakespeare trivia quiz to do during the day. Here’s a few questions to get you started!

Q: In which town was Shakespeare born?

A: Stratford-upon-Avon.

Q: In which play would you find this quote? “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.”

A: Romeo and Juliet

Q: In which play would you find this quote? “What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?”

A: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

So if you’re organising a stag or hen do, then tell us your ideas for giving your party a Shakespeare twist. And don’t forget, “All the world’s a stage (As You Like It),” so party like it!

If you’ve a big fan of the bard, you might like to take part in some of the birthday events taking place this weekend. Find out more on the Shakespeare’s Birthday Celebrations website: http://www.shakespearesbirthday.org.uk/

There are lots of ways you can get in the spirit of the Olympics, whether you’ve tickets to the games or not! One great way is to host your own themed Company Games Day.

With this fantastic teambuilding ‘Olympic Games‘ themed day, you and your colleagues will take part in a variety of exciting challenges. Teams will need good co-ordination, team work, fine motor skills and of course a good sense of humour!

The Olympic ceremony will start with the teams making a spectacular entrance to music carrying their team flag high and each representing a different country. The teams need to accumulate points through participating in various activities to get closer to a podium finish!

Host your own Olympic Games

There’s an extensive selection of events to participate in, including:

Junkyard Javelin – Create your own devices to launch the javelin as far as possible.

Synchronised Swimming – Imagination and flair are essential when choreographing a routine worthy of a gold medal (water not included!).

Giant Penalty Shootout – Big Goals – Big Hands – Big Balls. It’s just Big!!

Which team will win Gold and be on the winner’s podium!?

If you’re looking for a fun team-building day, then this is the ideal event for this year. Adventure Connections can design and organise a teambuilding event or day out to match your requirements perfectly. There’s a whole variety of activities to choose from, so take a look at our all our teambuilding days or call us on 08451 251 251 to talk through your ideas.

Dates you might want to avoid in 2012!

Superstitious or not, Friday the 13th is a day that many will avoid planning an event on, just in case!! We look at some other dates you might want to avoid this year if you’re planning an event.

Whether you’re planning a stag party or hen weekend or your actual wedding; a corporate event or teambuilding day; or any other type of event, there are some dates this year that you must be best to avoid!

Unlucky for some!?

There’s another Friday 13th later in the year, the next one is in July!

Did you know? Those that fear this superstitous date have “friggatriskaidekaphobia” or “paraskevidekatriaphobia”.

2012 Sporting fixtures

There are a lot of major sporting events this year and therefore you might want to consider these when planning your event.

If you’ve got lots of football fans in your group, then you might want to avoid the FA Cup Final on 5th May.  The Euro 2012 tournament starts on 8th June so you will particularly need to factor in the dates when England are playing and of course the date of the final on 1st July.

For golf fans, there’s the Open Championship from 19th to 22nd July. Whilst F1 motorsport fans will be devastated if they can’t watch the British Grand Prix on 8th July (although don’t forget the practice and qualifying rounds which rule out the 2 preceding days aswell!)

Also, of course there’s the Olympic Games to factor in, particularly if you are hoping to organise an event in or around London. They run from 27th July to 12th August  so that’s a couple of weeks that you might want to avoid, plus then there’s the Paralympic Games following on after.

Quirky dates in 2012

Alternatively, there are a couple of dates this year which might be fun to plan an event on!

10/11/12 which falls on a Thursday
12/12/12 which falls on a Wednesday

So mark these dates off in your diary and be sure to consider them when planning your event to ensure that you aren’t disappointed if people decline your invitation or alternatively they attend but are distracted throughout the day as they try to keep track of the scores on their mobile phone or worse still, sneak off to find a TV to watch!

Let us know if you’ve ever planned an event on a clashing date and what happened?

We’ve just picked our horses in the office sweepstake for the Grand National on Saturday 14 April 2012. This year will the winner be one of the real outsiders or can ‘Ballabriggs’ win again?

Have a winning stag weekend!

If you’ve got the task of sorting out your friend’s stag party then you’ll need to get the plans ‘Synchronised’ with all the guys so you all know what you’re doing, when and where otherwise there will be a lot of ‘OrganisedConfusion’!

Find out what the groom-to-be would like to do for his stag do. Remember it’s his last night of freedom so don’t just pick things that you personally want to do. It’s all about him and for the weekend anyway he’ll be ‘Always Right’.

If you’re hitting the bars and clubs in the evening, then one of these will be ‘The Midnight Club’ at 12 o’clock!

At no point during the weekend do you want to leave the stag ‘On His Own’ - anything might happen to him and if he’s had a bit too much to drink then he could be using the excuse ‘BecauseICouldntSee’.

You really want to make sure he returns from his stag weekend in one piece as you don’t want to upset the bride-to-be and make her go ‘Deep Purple’ with rage!

Unfortunately we can’t get you tickets for the Grand National as it’s a sell-out but there are loads of race days throughout the year so if you fancy a flutter, Adventure Connections can arrange for you to go to a racecourse as part of your stag weekend. Give us a call on 08450 251 251

For more information about the Grand National, visit the Official Grand National website