What to do for my parents's 65th anniversary?

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carolpetunia

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Oh my gosh, what wonderful ideas! I love them all, and they're all affordable, too! Gosh, you folks are great... I really appreciate this! I'm meeting my brother for lunch at El Fenix on Tuesday to make our plan. This is so exciting!

Now if I can just figure out how to get their wedding rings so I can take them to be repaired. Mom has them somewhere, but... where? If I ask her, she'll know something's up.

Hmmmmm. She does have a hair appointment next week. While she's gone, I'll go into her room and snap some photos... then put on rubber gloves and undertake an exhaustive search of the premises. When I'm done, I'll refer to the photos so I can put everything back exactly as it was...

Diabolical, eh?
 

karmasmom

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Just a thought about the ring idea. What IF your mom or dad decides to pull them out to look at them? Try to take them and return them very fast or come up with some lie about it to tell your parents. The last thing you want is for them to think either they lost them or that someone robbed them. Thats my biggest concern for your plan. I know if I was getting ready to celebrate my 65th my Dh and I would like to pull the rings out to look at and share our memories. It would kill me if I went to get them and they were gone. What if one of them has the same idea? I have seen far to many sitcoms with this same scenario and the person whose ring it was ends up tearing things apart looking for it. Just be careful. I love the idea but try to have your bases covered.
 
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carolpetunia

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Oh my gosh -- you are SO RIGHT.
I can't take the rings at all, in fact, because if they do look for them and see they've been miraculously repaired... a thing like that could land us all in the tabloids!


Thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious! Maybe I can arrange to snitch the rings just before the date and have the repair place primed to turn them around immediately...
 

tari

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Carol, you've got some wonderful ideas. We just celebrated my parents' 40th anniversary, and we had a similar get-together, including a vows renewal. We were in the same position as far as neither of my parents practicing a particular religion. I found out that, really, anyone can lead a vows renewal ceremony. It's not a legal ceremony so it doesn't require a clergyperson or judge. I lead the ceremony for my parents, and it turned out great.

We were fortunate in that we were able to get all of the immediate family together, but there were several members of the extended family and friends who would have liked to be there. We ended up getting a speakerphone and having those who could call my parents with their well wishes during the brunch. (We thought of the video, which would have been great, but we weren't able to get it together in advance. The phone calls worked out well because it didn't require too much advance planning.)

Have a great time!
 
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carolpetunia

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Brilliant, Tari! I love the phone idea... that would be perfect for those who can't make it. Maybe... hey, they mostly live in the same couple of towns, very close by each other -- maybe they could have a little party of their own that night, so they'd all be in one place for the phone call! Ooooh I'm loving this...

And it's great to know that about the renewal of vows. I'll look into that... I imagine there are standard scripts to work from online, and although I'd be too tearful to officiate, I'll bet my brother could handle it.


I cannot thank you all enough for these wonderful ideas! You guys are the very best!
 

sweets

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Originally Posted by CarolPetunia

Ha! That's a great idea, about letters from heads of state -- and darn right it'll have to be the Queen, or some Indian prince or Mongolian warlord... because this household has no use whatsoever for the current US president!
If my memory serves, the president only sends out congratulations to 75 yr anniversaries and 100th birthday.

5. Music would be easy -- my brother is a working musician and has a fabulous rig, so he could play, and he has friends who could come, too. His rig would also provide a PA for toasts and so forth.
My brother is also a working musician, and he got some friends to come and play for my parents' 50th anniversary party so he could enjoy the day.

Everything sounds wonderful! My siblings and I wrote a letter to my parents which was read at the party. We thanked them for all the lessons taught over the years with examples. There were a lot of laughs and some tears.
 

sibohan2005

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Congratulation to your parents, we just had my grandparents 60th anniversary in june we had a tea and cake at their house over 100 people came in to vitis and sign a book of congratulations. My mom and I made a lovely scrapbook with all the family wedding pictures of my grandparents and their children and grandchildren. We also had punch, tea, coffee and cake
 
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carolpetunia

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What lovely stories! Yes, I think my brother should only do a few special songs, and the one he and I do together the way my parents used to sing it on their radio show. He has a friend named Frank Gilligan (formerly a member of Mason Dixon, if you recall them) who has the most beautiful tenor voice... my parents love to hear him, and I'm sure he'd come. Also a fellow whose guitar work is amazing, every bit as good as my brother's (and even my brother says so)... maybe he would come do some instrumentals for us.

The letter is a wonderful thought... we actually did that for their 50th, but there's so much more to talk about now.
And with any luck, we'll have more guests this time! It's hard to gather a crowd when you live 1000 miles away from the rest of your family.
They do have friends here, though, and one of my father's sisters and her husband live down in Austin, so we'll have at least a few family members here.

The guest book is another terrific idea! Something with lots of room for people to write messages to my folks... excellent!

Thank you thank you thank you!
 

spudsmom

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Wow! 65 years of marriage is definately an event to celebrate! I think all of your original ideas are great and so are all the ones others have suggested.
I really love the idea of having their rings repaired. I think that is an awesome idea. I'm sure you are going to make their day special whatever you decide on. They are lucky to have such a long married life and lucky to have a thoughtful daughter like you!
 

momofmany

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I haven't read all the suggestions but here's some ideas:

Originally Posted by CarolPetunia

3. I want to put together a Powerpoint slideshow of their marriage to show during the party. My brother could run it off his laptop, so all we'd have to rent would be the projector and screen.
I'll take this up one notch. When my mom was terminally ill, we hired someone that set pictures of her life to music. Each of the 5 kids picked a song that they thought appropriate to her life and as each song played, the video displayed pictures from different eras of her life (growing up, young married with kids, kids growing up, grandkids, etc). She absolutely loved it (and it became our tribute to her at her funeral).

If you are powerpoint savy at all, you could match music to the powerpoint slides, and save yourself having to hire someone to put it together for you.

There are very cool songs out there. I picked John Lennon's My Life (there are places I remember......)

For my aunt/uncle 50th wedding anniversary, they asked people to write a story about their favorite remembrance of them. They compiled all of them in a scrap book and they laughed and laughed reading thru it. Of course my memory was of their cat Zsa Zsa, which landed in a washing machine one day and how I vividly remember they way they told the story of her rescue ( I was probably 4 years old when I heard that story).
 

icklemiss21

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Originally Posted by Momofmany

If you are powerpoint savy at all, you could match music to the powerpoint slides, and save yourself having to hire someone to put it together for you.
If you use Windows, you can also use Windows Movie Maker to do the same thing in simple step by step instructions and automatic filters for the photos (page curls / dissolving into the next etc) and include music.
 
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carolpetunia

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Yes to you both on the Powerpoint with music and even video and narration, if some is warranted... back when I had a job, one of the things I did was write, direct, and edit video productions, so I can indeed do this!
It's just a matter of finding time to pull it all together.

Y'know... my parents (well, all of us) are musicians, and we have some pretty good tapes of them singing and playing... I could use those! My brother has the ability to burn those tapes to DVD, and I can take it from there with Powerpoint and iMovie. I can shoot current video, too, with my digital camera -- that would allow me to add shots of Mom's paintings, Papa's medals and certificates, the house and trees...

(Ha! I'm imagining one segment: I could use an old tape from the '60s of my father singing "King of the Road," over clips of movies shot from the front seat of the car on some of their many, many road trips...
)

A video scrapbook, is what I'm talking about here. I'm starting to see it now... this could be so great! I did something similar, but much smaller, for my brother when he turned 40, and everybody just loved it. Thank you for the inspiration!
 

pookie-poo

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Oh thank you Carol, for this post! I'm just starting to think about my parent's 50th anniversary, this coming Valentine's Day. We had a surprise 25th for them, and they really enjoyed that. My father is in rather ill health lately, so I'm not sure a party will be an option. The idea of contacting friends and family to have them send cards, sounds like a great idea though, and very do-able. My sister is planning to come home to Michigan from San Diego....I haven't seen her for over 2 years, and my parents haven't seen her for almost 3. We're looking into taking them to Joe Lewis Arena to see a Redwings Hockey game, but there's only 5 home games the entire month of February, so I'm not sure how that will work out with my sister's schedule.

Please let us know exactly how the party goes, what you did, and what they enjoyed the most. I'd really love to know what goes over the best. I'm rather unimaginative, so I may have to borrow some of your ideas, lol!
 

val2006

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Don't forget to take pictures and/or movies.
Even a friend with a good camera would probably do a nice job....or ask a couple/few people to take pix....then, due to the law of averages, you would probably get some nice pix.

It's ok NOT to say NO GIFTS. Especially with a dozen people. The people attending sound like they are very close relatives or friends and would probably love to help them celebrate by giving them a gift - even a gift cert from their fav restaurant would be a nice treat.

Absolutely ask for a card shower & maybe ask people to write a letter with their memories about your parents. You could even ask those with a movie camera to send you a tape - a visual/audio reminder of friends who are too far away to actually visit in person. You could add these into the power point. THIS would be an extra nice surprise for your parents!

I love the ring ideas. How will you know what size though?

WOW! You are LUCKY! Congratulations to all of you! Good Luck!
 
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carolpetunia

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Yes ma'am, I am lucky indeed, to still have both my parents.


I was worried about the size of the rings, too, but someone else mentioned borrowing other rings that fit them...
...so that's what I'll be doing. What would I do without you guys, huh?
 

tari

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Originally Posted by CarolPetunia

And it's great to know that about the renewal of vows. I'll look into that... I imagine there are standard scripts to work from online, and although I'd be too tearful to officiate, I'll bet my brother could handle it.
There are a few. Here are the best ones I found:
http://weddings.about.com/od/yourwed...newsamples.htm
http://www.idotaketwo.com/renewing_wedding_vows.html

I combined suggestions from a number of sources for my parents' ceremony. I have the script on my home computer. If you want me to send it to you, just PM me your e-mail address. (I won't be home until late this week, though.)

I totally cried all the way through it. Everbody knew I would. It was OK, though...they're all family.
(Besides, they all cried, too...even my tough-guy brothers.)
 
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