Posted by Lisa Jones on March 18, 2003 at 18:36:48:

In Reply to: Golden Anniversary Party Ideas! posted by Suzy Tindall on November 05, 2000 at 18:47:32:

I just returned from hosting my parents Golden Anniversary Party. I could not have done it without this web page, so I thought it appropriate to contribute to this page. I started with Suzy Tindall's very helpful idea's and adjusted to fit our situation. I started a year early, like she suggested. My parents retired in a small town 17 miles from Yosmite, CA, after raising my brother and me in Southern CA. I now live in Colorado and my brother lives in South Carolina. The logistics in planning this party was an adventure to say the least. My parents are Seventh-day Adventist. This means no dancing and no alcohol. All relatives had to travel and stay in a hotel. I was unsure of how successful this party would be. It ended up being a beautiful successful party. Last year, I spent a weekend with my parents and played journalist. I found many fun and unusual stories about their life. I wrote it all down for the party. I involved my mother in many areas of the party, since I didn't live there and because my parents are good at this. Mom found a lovely hotel for the guests to stay in, she was able to reserve a block of rooms at a discount rate and she found the conference room to hold the party. She also found the baker for the cake. This all needs to be done a year in advanceand reserved a year in advance. I went through my parents photo albums and made copies of their old black and white pictures, to include all of their family members. 6 months prior to the party, I sent our a pre-invitation letter, letting the guests know about the party and asking them to send "memories and pictures" to me. The week following Christmas, I did this again. I sent out formal invitations 6 weeks prior to the party. I designed the invitations myself, using Printmaster. I stole my idea's from the Halmark catalogs. I also designed by own address labels using Printmaster clip arts and clear labels (for some reason, I received a lot of compliments on this). I bought a "memory book" type of photo album for the "Memories" I used the scrapebook style that is the all the rage at this time to decorate the memories. I had to add more sleeve to this album many times. I also made a dozen Posters using the same scrapebook style to docorate pictures of my parents, their children, siblings and other friends and relatives. I placed these on the walls of the party room for the guests to browse around to look at (I also did this so that the guests while looking at the pictures can meet the other guests, since they have to get out of their seat to look at the pictures). I also used framed pictures for more special and memorable pictures on a table for the guests. I also used a specially decorated table for the Memory Book. I printed a 4 page program, I used 60 lb Presentation paper for the program. The front of the program was a Watermark of my parents Wedding Picture and written across it in the middle ~ in burgundy ~ Golden Wedding Anniversary, their name on the second line and on the third line ~ March 15, 1953 ~ March 15, 2003. The Second page of the program I printed the words of the song, Thanks Again, by Ricky Skaggs. The third page, was a Thank you to the guests from my parents. And the back side of the program I used the Time Capsule of, "On This Day in History". It is fun to read the time capsule. I bound this program together by using a heart shape hole punch and tieing it together with a pretty sparkling gold ribbon. I suggest buying the PrintMaster software for the little extra touches. I printed an Agenda. I asked my brother and our children to participate in the party and they did. Make sure you print the names of all the participants on the Agenda. I decorated the Agenda with Clip Arts from Printmaster. I printed the Agenda on Gold heavy weight paper. I used the information gathered a year earlier to play the Game "How Well Do You Know the Golden Couple". My niece and nephew were the MC's for the game. I had 20 questions for the game. My daughter who loves to sing, sang the Thanks Again song, by Ricky Skaggs. I had to search the Web for the Karoke version tape. I told a couple of funny/heartfelt stories that my parents had shared with me a year earlier. My brother did a wonderful Power Point presentation. He used photo's of our family and added poems to the left of each picture. The Power Point ran in slow speed through out the evening. My brother bought the bubbles. And then we all tied pretty ribbon on the bubbles, he also bought the disposable cameras. I made the party favors. I used the gold 50 cent chocolate candy and wrapped them in toulle (gold and burgundy were our colors too). In addition to the ribbon, I also bought tiny gold and burgundy roses. They cost about 44 cents for a dozen at Walmart. The stems of the roses easily wrap around the material. I also, wrote my parents name with a little clip art on a small gold colored paper (name tag) to attach to each party favor. I used Printmaster labels for the "name tag". For the center pieces. I had glass chimney placed on 12 X 12 mirror tile. I bought gold and burgundy candles. And sprinkled confetti on the tiles and the various tables (the confetti was a combination of 50, Happy anniversary and wedding type of designs, as well as streamer type of confetti). I used burgundy toulle and drapped it around the glass chimney, gold ribbon and a little larger gold and burgundy roses to tie the toulle. I made place cards by using Printmaster, so that I could add some pretty clip arts to the place cards. We had over 120 guests, so I only made place cards for the immediate family and my parents siblings and spouses. I followed Suzy's suggestion in buying the decorations with the after Christmas sales. Burgundy and Gold bows and ribbons are plentiful and cheap at that time. I had a large bin full of the decorations. I let our daughters use their imagination and decorate. Of couse, it was lovely. Don't forget to decorate the stage too.
Our children were also the greeters and in charge of the guest book. They made sure that all guests signed the guest books, had a name tage, program and Agenda. We had my parents minister do a special presentation (my dad objected to renewing their wedding vows, he said the first one took) My brother and I did the Toast with fake champaign. And the cake was decorated to match the original cake with the original cake top. I did have the meal catered, since the guests had traveled from Southern California and out of State. Everyone came. It turned out to also be a large family reunion. So, we made sure to leave plenty of time for pictures. That was important to the guests. While scanning and printing the many old photo's, I thought that my parents siblings would love to have their own copies of these photos. So I bought small cheap photo albums and decorated the cover of the plastic albums by using Printmaster clips arts and filled them with the old photo's. That went over very well, and of course other relatives have since asked for them too. The party was wonderful, we received many compliments and Thank you's as the guests were leaving and by follow-up e-mail and even by snail mail. I noticed each guests carefully carrying home the program, agenda and party favors.

Follow Ups:

• Re: Golden Anniversary Party Ideas! rebecca 04/01/04 (1)
  • Re: Golden Anniversary Party Ideas! Thelma 08/03/04 (0)

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