For my parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary, I put together a photo album. It started out with their wedding picture, followed by photographs of their parents, a geneology chart for each of them (dating back to the 1700's), their baby pictures, pictures of them as teenagers, their first date picture, courtship pictures, marriage, birth of children, first house, etc. At the end, I had a section labeled "Friends". About a month before the anniversary, I sent out questionnaires to all their close friends asking them to respond to questions like "How did you first meet?" "What special memories do you have of your friendship?" "What qualities of Mom & Dad do you think contributed to their long & happy marriage?" and "What is your favorite love song, poem or story?" Almost everyone responded. I used the responses and pictures of the friends at the back of the photo album. My parents loved reading all the comments. It brought back many great memories. I also prepared a plaque with $.50 pieces from each year of their marriage in the shape of a 50. For the coins I had trouble finding on my own, I went to a coin shop. I mounted the coins on red velvet on a wood board and had it framed. The hot glue has come loose on some of the coins, so rubber cement might work better. If you want any other ideas, let me know.

I came to this site looking for ideas for my parents who are trying to come up with a good 50th anniversary gift for my grandparents as well. I appreciate the ideas that have been posted thus far. I do have a suggestion for the group - My mom made a cross-stitch blanket that is hanging above my grandparents' bed for one of their anniversaries. It's basically a family tree and includes a square for each person - My mom stiched i.e. "John" (son) and his birthdate and then "Jane" (wife) and her birthdate, and in between the two - their wedding anniversary date. And then below John and Jane are the three kids and their birthdates. In each person's square she stitched a little item that represents that person - like my square has a piano because I play piano... my cousin's has a baseball, etc. It was VERY well received and it's perfect because we know how when you get old you are very good at forgetting dates! I thought this was the best gift idea ever and it was very well received. And every time a new family member is added, my Mom just updates the blanket.... The problem is now, we have their 50th anniversary coming up and this past anniversary gift is going to be very hard to top.

We got two gifts in total. A vacuum cleaner and a pressure cooker. Both most welcome and the pc is still in use. No ’shower’ and only 8 wedding guests. Just parents, siblings and their spouses. DD got married during covid with the permitted 6 guests but a year later we had a party with 100 guests. They requested no gifts, just donations to two charities. The Italian side of the family found this diffcult to grasp and gave a lot of knickknacks they neither want nor need.

Absolutely beautiful! And so unusual and appropriate. You do have some Japanese in there, Carole. The last two "letters" in the right-most line are "na" and "ru," which turn the previous two kanji characters (which mean happiness) into an adjective to modify the characters for marriage in the next line over. Japanese and Chinese share a lot of characters, but the "na" and "ru" are definitely only Japanese. In fact, the only part of the writing that might not be taken for Japanese is the first character in the right line, which, as you probably already know, means "celebrate." It would normally come in a different place and have one or two Japanese letters, such as a verb ending, with it. Still, it is perfectly understandable to a Japanese. What a wonderful gift you made!