First of all, let me welcome you to the Kitchen Table. This is absolutely the best forum on the internet!! Many of us have been here since before the turn of the century, and have special friendships (I have met a number of KTers IRL). When you get a chance, tell us about yourself and your family.

Now, to the question about the party. I have made my own invitations, and they were great. I used high quality parchment paper and envelopes. You can put as many pictures, sentiments, etc. as you wish. Give a time that is 1/2 hour before your in-laws will arrive.

Flowers and cake are a must. Be sure to make a list of gifts, to aid in the preparation of thank you notes (and give your MIL a list of names and addresses for all invited). Name badges are nice, if some guests don't know everyone. Party favors are well received. The last party I gave, I had nice pens engraved, engraved matchbook-sized note pads, and candy kisses with labels on the bottom...all in a nice little baggy.

Photo boards are wonderful, if you have (or have access to) photos of their wedding, milestone events, children, grandchildren, etc. Also consider balloons, streamers, banners, etc.

If you plan to have a champagne toast, don't forget to have non-alcoholic bubbly for those who don't drink.

I'm sure you will get wonderful suggestions from the smart people here. And no matter what question you ask, one of the KT family members will know the answer!

Again, welcome to the KT!!

We had a 50th party for my parents a few years ago. I did make my own invitations with software I had... more recently I've ordered invitations from Mixbook (nice, but shipping is very high) and am presently ordering some invitations from Lil Duck Duck. You can get invitations made at Etsy and eBay too... most of these come to you in a file and you can print as many as you need.

We had our party in a restaurant's private room. I did cover mini Hershey's with their wedding photo and scattered those on the tables as decor and favors. We made sure there were plenty of gold and white balloons too. I made a photo board and a 'memory jar' where guests wrote memories of the couple down on paper and put those into the jar for the couple to read later. We happened to have a professional magician in the family and he put on a short magic show.

At the last minute I decided to assign seating and I'm very glad I did that.. otherwise I'm afraid families would have been separated plus everyone wanted to sit by my parents and I wanted to make sure their siblings got that honor.

Let us know how your party goes! Welcome to the KT!

Some things our daughters did for our 50th celebration--

Beforehand they invited friends to write any special memories. Many did, and daughters put them in a loose leaf notebook for us to keep.

During the dinner our oldest daughter went from table to table and explained just how each person was connected to us. Everyone liked that!

Photo boards were mounted on easels and folks spent a long time studying them.

Here is the clickable link Houseful :)

Here is a link that might be useful: 50th Wedding Anniversary

Thank you for the wonderful suggestions! Thank you for the link Deborah. I completely forgot about putting in the bottom.

I am feverishly taking notes as I read.

I've got flowers, balloons, photo board, slideshow, dj, photographer, videographer lined up already. We too are having the party in a private room at a restaurant.

I didn't think about non-alcoholic bubbly, so thank you for that suggestion.

I love the memory jar or the asking for memories ahead of time. It might be fun to even have some people lined up to present their memories out loud. We've got some very funny people in the group!

Lydia! Ever since I have known my FIL, he has been a chocoholic. He LOOOVES Hersheys and has been know to eat one of those giant bars by himself (and still manage to stay fit, LoL!) I looked into the minis and I think we will order those. How many do you think we need for 80 people?

The nice thing about those attending is that there is not one person that hasn't been in our (their) circle of friends for less than 20 years. Practically every one of them attended our wedding, so I am almost positive there will not be any awkward moments. In fact, there will be a lot of catching-up among the guests who haven't seen each other while we wait for my inlaws to arrive. I don't think I will need assigned seating, but will just reserve a few tables for immediate family. I also will just the arrival time on the invites and have my inlaws get there about 20 minutes later.

I am on the fence about party favors. We'd rather put the money toward good food, drink, and entertainment.

I will check out the invitation websites listed. I've decided that making my invitations won't save that much because I don't have the computer program. I'd have to buy that plus the paper and envelopes, PLUS take the time to learn it, design it, etc. For about $100, it is worth getting them made, I think.

A little about me: Former prop. mgmt assistant, turned teacher, turned SAH mom, turned homeschooler, turned remodel addict, turned part-time volunteer teacher again, all the while working as fitness instructor and now personal trainer and care-giver to my aging mother! Somehow, I still manage to maintain my sanity, LOL!

I am so excited about this party! I will you all know how it goes. But before that, I am sure I will be back with more questions. :-D

I had a 50th for my parents last year. I scanned and downloaded their wedding picture for the invitation. It had their wedding picture on the front. Got it thru Vistaprint and it was pretty cheap. I also found a frame that held 2 pictures and under it said "then" and "now. For the "then" part I found a picture of them at 16 dancing at a school dance, for the "now" a picture taken at their class reunion 2 years ago. I had to "sneak" into my parents home when they were gone, take photos of the photos they had and then download....It was alot of work, but I am glad I was able to do it.

Thank you, Msmagoo. That is on our agenda for this weekend, including sneaking into their house, LOL! I have someone else in charge of scanning, so I don't have to worry about that. I KNOW that's quite a job.

Another question: This will be a 100% Italian wedding...lasagna, cannoli, etc. Originally, I was going to do white table clothes with red overlay. Now that I am shopping for decorations, I realize there seems to be lots of black accessories to go with the gold. What do you think the best color scheme would be? I can do the red and gold, with just a few touches of black here and there. Or I can go all gold and white, with black accents. Any thoughts or other ideas?