Golden wedding anniversary party - help!

[PrettyCandles]

My siblings and I are arranging a big bash in October for our parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Cash is a little tight for all of us at the moment, so we've booked a lovely hall and are trying to do the rest ourselves to cut costs. It will be a sit-down buffet.

My particular task is decorations and The Cake. But oh! argh! help! I totally lack inspiration! The venue bans balloons in any form, and, I suspect, anything messy, like streamers or confetti, because it is also an art gallery. I will only be able to speak to them in a couple of weeks' time, as they are closed for the summer.

Please, oh experienced, clever and original Mumsnetters, HELP!

BANS BALLOONS WTF? TUT

I can't think that there is a LOT you can do if they are banning balloons/streamers/anything messy

What about some nice bouquets of gold roses (Asda) with gold ribbon on?

errrmmmm

OK, so you need to make a big 5 0 out of cardboard and get the kids to paint it gold, so that you can hang it up somewhere on the wall.

Get loads of photos of their 50 years together and make gold frames out of cardboard again and paint. Just stick them up with blu-tac around the hall.

Cake - can you get someone to make one for you, if you don't think you're up to it? If you can, keep it simple. The cake doesn't have to feed everyone there. It's more for yout mum and dad tbh. A good cake supply stockist, will have plenty of toppers made of icing that you can pass off as your own! Just make and ice two or maybe three round cakes of different sizes, stack them on top of eachother and finish with shop bought things.

Won't be able to stick anything to the walls - it's a gallery and there will be an ongoing art exhibition. But I like the idea of photos of their life together. I wonder whether I can get (cheaply) some sort of leg to hold each picture up, and incorporate pictures in a bouquet on each table?

Making the cake is not a problem. (It used to be my hobby when I still had A Life before having children.) It's just inspiration that is the problem! My first idea was to recreate their wedding cake, but there is only one very unclear photo of it, it doesn't look anything fancy, and TBH my parents don't even really remember it. It couldn't have been that important to them. Then I thought, what about representing them as the heads of Our Family. But one of my siblings has a messy on-and-off relationship and I'm the only one with children, so I don't think that would work. Either I'm overemphasised on the cake or I leave all partners and grandchildren off - both of which feel wrong.

Was at my parents' 50th last night. We had helium balloons in middle of table with the weighty thing- so no bobbing about balloons- would that be acceptable? Mum had organised a cake from local bakery- was lovely - just their names, Happy golden Wedding and some lovely flowers edged in gold. We had this after the meal.

Another idea was to take a wedding photo and make a wine label type thing which could go over the original labe and call it anniversary wine.

We had banners on the walls too. What about golden candles- even if they can't be lit- mum was insistent that we had a candelabra plonked in the middle of the table, but only had white candles. One nice touch, completely randomly was a wedding taking place in another room, so mum and dad got to way lay as many guests as possible to tell them it was a good start as they were still here 5 years on!!

go to poundland - they might have some of those clippy things that you can use for photos

How about this sort of thing for the cake?

For decoration - if they are not going to let you attach anything anywhere then you are basically limited to the tables - so how about photos on wires (those clip things) sticking up out of flowers?

If you want to do the big 5 and 0 as per Mo's suggestion, you could ask the venue if they have flipchart easels (or other free-standing display boards) you could use?

50 years ago there would have been no balloons at a wedding, no conffeti or streamers indoors and decorations would be confined to the tables.

Some ideas -

Gold tablecloths from ASDA/Tesco
Napkins with wedding photo printed on
Cake in shape of 50 - you ice the cut outs as well and cut ready for passing round
Ask guests to wear something gold
Gold spray paint for bowls for table decorations etc.
Golden photo album for passing round and DM & DF to keep
or put photos on a CD and have a slide show with appropriate music

Some great ideas, thanks!

More, please!!

How about a photo cake from Asda, with a wedding photo on the top?

For a budget present a hamper of "gold" goodies eg All Gold chocolates, Golden Syrup, Golden Shred Marmalade, Golden Nuggets (you get the idea..!) all nicely presented in a gold wrapped box.