Celebrating a Golden Wedding Anniversary

My parents celebrated their golden/fiftieth wedding anniversary a week after my wedding. I left the planning and coordinating to my brother since I was already swamped with my own wedding. I was pretty much involved in it still since I ended up handling the church coordination since they were late in church!

Anyway, after months of debating on what to do we decided to hold the celebration where my parents would be happiest -- at the Parish Church they helped build for the ceremony and at home for the reception. We did all the work and spent less than PhP70K for everything.

The Ceremony - the renewal of vows was headed by our Parish Priest and instead of him giving a homily he asked both my parents to share their experiences and secret to a lasting marriage. We, the children, stood in as secondary sponsors. The grandchildren participated as bridesmaids and groomsmen. No more ninongs and ninangs since they don't need it anymore. After the renewal of vows we each gave our thanks and prayers.

The Reception - we managed to pack in everybody in my Mom's garden and just set a small area as a "stage". We made them go through most of the traditions, but kept the whole program as a surprise. One of my nephews prepared a couple of videos where we showed photos from their wedding 50 years ago, the 25th wedding anniversary, the 35th and 40th and included a lot of family photos. The grandkids also performed a couple of song and dance numbers and a reading of one of my Dad's favorite pieces. It was a fun, cozy and intimate evening with close family and friends. Just the way my parents wanted.