Happy 50th Mom and Dad

I can’t believe my mom and dad have been married for 50 years. 

Jason and I knew this was coming up and decided to throw them a party.  We had already picked out the weekend and started planning.  However, mom and dad had other plans and had booked a weekend getaway to St Simons Island the same weekend.  She asked me to take care of their dog and I told them they couldn’t go away.  We disagreed back and forth because they didn’t really want a big to do, but oh well because I snuck into her email account and changed their weekend – hehe, sneaky aren’t I? 

The plan was made, invitations sent, food bought, and the band was practicing.  Oh yeah we had a band that consisted of Jason, Adam, his brother Brian, Kyle and Jeremy and they were going to play and sing 60’s music.  My uncle Chris was in charge of food since he was a chef.  He gave me the grocery list and he cooked the food.  We went with a burrito bar because when mom and dad first got married they would have the teenagers from their church over and have burrito bars.  For dessert it was an ice cream bar. 

I love how this collage turned out - thanks to Julie Hutson.  After spending way too much time trying to figure out how to put these pictures in a collage, I sent her all of the pictures and she had this back to me within about 30 minutes.  What a lifesaver!!

Yes, this is my mom's wedding gown.  She had not opened it in 50 years.  Now my mom is so skinny and we just knew she would be able to fit into the dress again, well let's just say that she must have been VERY skinny 50 years because it did not zip up all the way.

Pictures from their past put into mason jars for a very simple centerpiece.

Over 60 people attended and everything went over so well – thankfully the weather held up great – it actually wasn’t too hot and it didn’t rain.  The food was so good – burritos, chicken, beef, homemade salsa, black bean and corn salsa and a shrimp salsa.  Chris even made Cherry Limeades, which was a huge hit!!

We didn’t want this to be the kind of party where people just sit around and talk, so we planned a couple of games. The first was a trivia game of facts from the year of the wedding – 1964.  Just an FYI, there was a lot of stuff going on in 1964 – GI Joe was made, 1^st Mustang was made, Sharpie was created, Beatles were HUGE, and the #1 movie was Mary Poppins.

Our second game was The Not So Newleywed Game.  We had 3 other couples (besides mom and dad) that were chosen at random based on whose anniversary dates was closest to the month and day picked out of a hat.  The couples chosen did an awesome job and Jason was the emcee and did a GREAT job.  The answers were GREAT and there were plenty of laughs. 

They were pretty excited they were getting them right.

Mom and Dad actually won - it wasn't even rigged!!

Time for some ice cream.  This went over so well and everyone seemed to love it.

Tara our ice cream scooper - she said it was her workout.

It was then time for the band.  They did such a great job on all of the songs and it made mom’s night with all of the music from back in their day.  Now there wasn’t much dancing because I guess these weren’t the people to dance.  One of mom and dad’s favorite song is Love Me Tender so Jason did make them go out and dance to it.  It was really sweet and really out of my dad’s element. 

After about 17 songs, Kyle put on a few dance songs like Electric Slide, Wobble and the Cupid Shuffle and we actually had some dancers.  Jeremy was our dancer and had to teach us how to do the Wobble.  We decided that we should be doing this once a month – it was so much fun.

The party turned out so great and so many people have talked about it saying that it was one of the best parties and they don’t usually stay at parties too long, but they did at this one and had a great time.  I don’t think Jason and I could have pulled anything like this off without the help from Chris and his friend Julie and her mom.

Happy 50th Anniversary Mom & Dad!!