Golden Wedding Present

[AnnieMo]

After your wonderful suggestions for 40th Birthday present I am counting on you all to come up with some inspiration for my rather tired brain. It is my mum and dad's Golden Wedding in September and they are treating the family to a weekend in a hotel with a celebration meal. Any great ideas for a present or suprises most welcome!

How about a photographer to take some lovely family shots over the weekend... one of the whole family and maybe a few of the couple and some of grandkids...
Picture/painting/watercolour of where they went for their honeymoon or another favourite place
Weekend away on their own...
Golden rose bush for their garden...
HTH - all the above inspiration from my own parents GW this year. Hope they have fun.

How many grandchildren? One of my parents most treasured possessions is an album of artwork (pictures and poems) about them put together by all their grandchildren.

For my grandparents golden wedding, my mother made up some garden planters, where all the plants had gold in the name somewhere.

For my parent's 40th wedding aniversary my sister created a book. All the family members contributed stories, funny family moments, running jokes from years ago. My parents adored it, especially as we are far flung and many of the stories and jokes hadn't come out in years, cue much laughter and reminiscing.

She also arranged a surprise party and invited people my dad had worked with before he retired, a sister my mother hadn't seen for years and assorted friends, including one of the alter boys from their wedding.

Thanks for the ideas. I would love to get a photo of all the family done - the family situation is a little complicated (aren't they all!) as my brother has a daughter of 16 from a previous relationship, who my mum and dad see alot of and would love to be there, and a baby son with his new wife. The complicated bit is that his new wife does not accept his daughter and so has alienated the rest of the family somewhat - why can't life be simple! My mum would love everyone to be there in harmony for their celebration and I just hope that they can - but perhaps a photo would be pushing it a bit.

We did buy some roses called Golden Wedding for my PIL a couple of years ago and they were very successfull. Strangely enough my FIL died just before Christmas. While he was ill in hospital the roses were full of buds and MIL had planned to pick a posy to take to him. One the same morning she caught a deer in the garden who came and ate all the buds leaving them bare - I do hope they recover.