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Golden Anniversary Party Ideas!Posted by Suzy Tindall on November 05, 2000 at 18:47:32: I just got back from throwing my parents 50th wedding anniversary party! Thought I'd share some things that worked, some things that didn't, and MANY THANKS to those of you who wrote me with suggestions and ideas! First, keep in mind you are doing this to honor your parents. Keep saying that over and over when things are going bad . . . Second, START EARLY! I mean a YEAR early if possible! Start talking with relatives and friends (and your parents and siblings). Some suggestions I got from one lady I just couldn't do in 6 weeks time! Talk to people who've already celebrated 50 years! One lady told me the BEST present she got was a quilt that one of her daughters sent a square to close friends and relatives for them to sign in permanent fabric pens and then she quilted it into a wonderful quilt! Another lady treasured a book of memories where each friend or family member shared a special memory. Both ladies told me they had surprise parties and DID NOT like them! Set up a web site (lots of companies offer free sites with web page builders, if you can post messages to this board, you can use these tools to build a web site!) Just search for "free web sites" and pick one (I happened to pick www.20m.com, go to www.JoyceandJim.20m.com to see the site I set up) Send the site to EVERYONE you know requesting ideas and nice people will send them! Of course you need access to a scanner to put in all those nice pictures, but you can even go to a library or rent scanner time at a place like Kinkos. Lots of people are worried about toasts. I even threatened my three siblings that they better have nice toasts, and NONE of us prepared them ahead of time, we just spoke from our hearts and it was great! One of my brothers said something clever like "For the first 15 years I tried to be just like you, then the next 15 years I tried to be nothing like you . . ." and ended it by saying something like he's trying to be like them again. Don't stress the toasts! Talk from you heart! Easy decorations that went over well and didn't cost much: Toulle with 4 or 5 gold Hershey kisses wrapped with ribbon! We even used them as weights for our balloon bouquets! We chose a burgundy and gold theme because burgundy was the only color of table skirts we could borrow, and it was BEAUTIFUL!! So get gold and burgundy toulle (against the fabric wall at most Wal-Marts), cut them into 9 inch squares (cutting board and rotary cutter help here!), the toulle is 45 inches wide, so a yard will get you 20 favors (tie with about 15 inches of 1/4 inch ribbon, so you'll need 300 inches or 25 yards of ribbon!) There's about 88 kisses per bag, ok, you get the picture, do the rest of the math yourself!) The toulle is about a dollar a yard! Gold and burgundy ribbon is cheap and plentivul right now due to Christmas! Ok, BALLOON bouquets! Three balloons per bouquet (two gold one burgundy), one yard curling ribbon per balloon (gold and burgundy, burgundy tied to the gold balloons, etc.) make a CUTE CHEAP table centerpiece (go price flowers!). People loved the balloons because they didn't take up a lot of space and were raised about the heads so people could talk across the table! We even used banana tree leaves and asparagus fern (free outside the center the party was at!) to place on the food tables, and everyone went CRAZY over it! Hershey Symphony bars are wrapped in gold foil, if you want to do the candy bar wrapper thing! OH YEAH! I bought those CHEAP (<$10) poster frames (30 by 36) from Wal-Mart, spray painted the sheet in the frame gold and made picture collages (so any space the pictures didn't cover the gold showed through). I made 4 and everyone LOVED them! One for the couple's pictures, one for her pictures, one for his pictures, and one for family pictures. CHEAP, easy, no video needed! I did a program that went over well, but it was a lot of work that needed to be done in advance. The cover was simple with their names the date and a picture of them back in 1950. The first page was the order of events (icebreaker game, vows, dinner, toasts, cake, dancing and games). The next page recalled the events of their wedding day, the next page recalled their children's and granchildren's names and birthdays, the last page was a cute poem of thanks. I made a separate "What Happened in 1950" sheet, but I think I should have put it on the back of the program. A WONDERFUL person mailed me the 1950 info sheet that I just tailored for my folks (thanks DWulff2921). I stressed over having enough music, our party lasted about 4 hours, and believe me, 4 CDs would have been enough! Borrow them from friends of the library or download them from Napster and burn your own CDs. To create a custom CD of the songs popular when your parents were married, I liked this site: http://www.summer.com.br/~pfilho/html/top40/ DON'T FORGET THE GUEST BOOK! Make people sign it! We even bought a slicing knife from the "Dollar Tree" store, wrapped it with gold and burgundy ribbon (secured with hot glue) to make a WONDERFUL cheap knife for the old folks to cut the wedding cake with! Christmas is here and the stores are full of gold stuff, so if your parents anniversary is in 2001! Go load up now! I know I've forgotten something, but if I remember I'll add more later. Hope this helps! --suzy
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