to ask you to help me with my menu? I need to learn to keep my gob shut.

[Diddydollydo]

So I have opened my big gob and offered to host my PILS Golden Wedding do on Saturday. It was due to be at BILS in Devon but due to illness and various things it can't go ahead and they were do disappointed so I said 'oh have it here' and now I have no idea what I am going to give everyone to eat. To be fair it's NOT a massive event , there will be 10 adults and 6 children but I am a bit of a rubbish cook and to be honest, though I want everyone to have a good time, I don't want to spend ALL day in the kitchen.

So....what food do I prepare?
Drinks? (have a couple of bottles of champers though they are not big drinkers)
Any other ideas to make it a bit special for them? I have ordered some gold plates and sparkly balloons and stuff from Amazon but any other ideas?

Oh and we don't have loads of cash to spare either.

I'd go less is more - so do a few nice dishes than lots of bits and bobs.

I'd do platters of meat, bread separately, cheese plate, crackers, pies/sausage rolls, whole salmon, salad. Then the cake for dessert.

Drinks wise - do offer tea if there are older poeple.

At a relatives golden wedding they served tea and cream cakes after the buffet and it was really well received.

Jacket potato bar always goes down well.
Lots of fillings like
Grated cheese
Beans
Chillis
Tuna
Coronation chicken
Prawns
Bacon and sour cream

And some salady bits.

Golden anniversary - I made cake pops the other day with white choc and sprayed them gold with that icing spray you can get, looked great. If you can't do pops get some cupcakes and spray them gold??. Could spray most things like fruit or chocolates etc. real wow factor with no real,effort

Go for yellow or gold napkins, plates, plastic cutlery etc. balloons too.

get everyone to dress in 'wedding finery' and buy buttonholes for the 'groom' and a flower corsage for her, also a wedding veil type thing? makes it special and fun.
pudding idea (for the adults) one I make regularly is to dip biscuits (ginger nuts or choc chip work well) in a very strong coffee with liquoer (sp?) in it and sandwich side by side with whipped cream in stood up layers round a bowl, smooth top with more cream and sprinkle with nuts or flakey choc.... delicious and simple. biscuits go all soft and its like a cheats tiramisu.

oooh oooh another easy idea for a buffet that always looks posh and tastes good, rolled out or (ready rolled) puff pastry sheet topped with smoked salmon, dotted with marscapone and halved cherry toms and a sprinkle of dill then baked can also be done with roasted vegs and topped with mozzarella or cheddar for extra richness.

Ooh StepAway,
Loving your idea for 'wedding finery'. Sorry for going off topic here but I might just borrow nick your idea for our Forty Years Of Ups and Downs anniverrsary next year.

Yes, Stepaway I did that sort of thing for my parents' Golden Wedding. I hired a hall 300 miles away and a caterer local to there with fingers crossed but he came up with good stuff. We had a top table (with people at it as at a wedding) and I got an Uncle to do the Best Man speech.

I finished up with 60 relatives present, many of whom hadn't seen one another for years so I made them all a name badge each. A cousin organised the nusic and another did flowers for the party. I hired a local professional photographer who took superb wedding-type groups and sold me the negatives as well.

Because everyone was related, it was hard to break up the do in trhe end and get people to disperse. I'm known for good parties like that but I love organising my parties like this.

Sadly, many of the guests have now died so I'm glad I did it and have beautiful family photographs.

Rule you may have just have forced a wee tear out of me. What a lovely party...