Golden wedding help please!!

betterlatethannever

Hi,
My parents have a golden wedding coming up :j but myself and brother aren't exactly flush at the moment (or at any time).
They're well aware of this and are funding the majority of their own party

The problem comes with getting them a 'gift'.
They really do have everything and could afford to get themselves most items - although they're not loaded.

Gold is so expensive, so wondered if people had any ideas for gifts that would be cheapish (under £120) yet would be memorable.
Would a gift have to include gold, do you think?
Would a night in a plushish hotel be acceptable?

Any thoughts, ideas etc for gifts, party ideas etc etc would be really gratefully received .
Thanks so much :beer:

Sneezy

When my grandparents had been married 50 years, my dad did a slideshow of photos and put it on a DVD with a song that was relevant to them (magic moments will never sound the same again!!). It contained photos of their married life - group family photos, pictures of my aunt/uncles/mum growing up/pictures of where they grew up.

My grandparents loved it - the only thing it cost was time - I think it took my dad about 25-30 hours to get it right (over about 6 weeks).

At the same time as doing that my dad scanned and restored their wedding pictures, laminated them and we pinned them to the walls.

Someone who was there at their party took pictures and put it on an A3 piece of card and framed - again it was something that my grandparents loved and takes pride of place next to the cuckoo clock.

betterlatethannever

Sneezy, they're just the sort of ideas i'm after...Thank you :j

debsy42

For my parents anniversary I bought some of these from ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Anniversary-Personalised-Chocolate-Wrappers-Table-Favours-Gold-Wedding-Rings-/271198999950?pt=UK_Health_Beauty_Make_up_Cosmetics_Concealer_PP&var=&hash=item3f24b8558e

They fit perfectly around 2-finger KitKats and they were the talking point of the party we had

Mojisola

For my parents' 60th anniversary we contacted all their family, friends and neighbours (everyone on their Christmas card list) and asked people to contribute a "page" - some photos, some memories, greetings, etc - whatever they felt comfortable doing.

Almost everyone responded and we put together a big loose-leaf folder of all the contributions, safe inside clear pockets. It was a massive hit and has come out again and again at family occasions.

We found out things about our parents that we didn't know and the grandchildren have been fascinated, learning about stuff the oldies got up to when they were young!

We also put together a photo book starting with pictures of them both as babies and running through to the present. Photos taken at the anniversary do were added later to complete the story.

empressemma

There's a lady on Facebook called "hearts desire" she makes the most beautiful hand painted plaques etc.
for my mum and dad's golden, I had made a "mr & mrs walker est.1962" wall plaque, and they loved it.
My sister made a scrapbook with 50 pages, with photos for each page showing what went on, eg holidays, kids born, grand kids etc.

betterlatethannever

these ideas are so good, i just wish i'd asked here earlier
Please keep them coming, and thank you to those that have commented so far.

It seems i don't have to buy them something gold after all, just memories

susancs

We helped orgainise a 50th Wedding anniversary party last year in a social club and found some great bits on ebay. For cakes bought some gold cupcake cases and some personalised rice paper cake toppers with their name on it. It was just a matter of making the cakes, cutting out a circle of roll out icing using an egg cup and putting a cake topper on these. Looked great on gold charger plates. Personalised ribbon sashes were cheap and looked great on the walls. Small packs of love hearts with personalised love heart wrappers in little gold bowls on the tables which were covered in gold table clothes and a three ballons filled with helium. For the main cake we bought three different sized white iced fruit cakes from Sainsburys (think Tesco and Asda do them too) and thick gold ribbon around these stacked up on top of each other (use dowlings as per instructions on youtube and M&S videos) and a personalised stick in style 50 gold cake topper. We ordered all the buffet sandwiches on trays from Costco so was just a matter of collecting these and purchasing the other cooked items to put on trays (although someone later told me Sainsburys do a very good party sandwich ordering service.. There were lots of gold plates and bowls in the pound shop to buy and purchased gold plastic cutlery from ebay. We also arranged with the DJ (and band) to have a special song played and they were invited to dance to If you could find out the first dance song they may have used at their wedding that may be a good one. We also had tea and coffee available (via a hot water urn) and this proved popular with some of the elderly relatives to have when the anniversary fruit cake was cut and brought around on trays.

The Golden anniversary couple had a lot of everything so had asked for no gifts but they still got some lovely gifts such as a golden rose bush to plant, a huge basket of golden Yellow roses presented on the night, a lovely Golden wedding anniversary photo frame and photo, a video of the night that someone had gone to the trouble of doing (with their golden anniversary dance, cutting the cake etc) and some lovely golden anniversary china cups and a golden anniversary clock. Afternoon tea at a nice venue was appreciated. Just some ideas to consider.

jackomdj

On the same theme, do you use Groupon? Look out for a company who do photo books. You can then put in photo's, letters, things they have collected like tickets etc. I have just bought a large acrylic using Groupon. Depending if they like jigsaws, I made my Dad a jigsaw base upon a collage of photos of my children which he loved.

You could also do an IOU for a photo book from their party, you could get people to write messages which get incorporated into the photobook.

Sezzagirl

There is a golden anniversary rose bush too

claretsgirl

For my parents Golden wedding we had a family photograph taken and framed for them. Something personal is far better than something expensive they don't really need. We also had a family meal at a local hotel.
My parents don't like a lot of fuss so it was perfect for them.