Parent's 25th Anniversary---ideas?

What about if the 3 of you joined in to get them a really nice and romantic dinner somewhere... just for the 2 of them? You could make the reservations, pay for it and even ask the restaurant ahead of time if they could do a neat dessert or something for them... 

Or rent them the honeymoon suite in a nice hotel for the weekend. Complete with a great dinner.

For my parent's 25th, we invited some really old friends (some they hadn't seen for 5-10 years) and had a BBQ. Some of these people drove 15+ hours just for it. It was awesome.

In addition to these people, my siblings & I put together a presentation with TONS of old photos. The beginning started with wedding photos - then the birth of their first kid.. second.. third.. and fun family events in between. It ended with the birth of their first grandchild. We showed the presentation with Powerpoint onto a wall with a projector attached to a laptop. While the photos were showing, we played the music to my parent's "song".

When the slideshow was over, we presented to them a re-creation of their wedding cake (from an old photo). My sister's friend made it for free - we just had to pay for the ingredients. But it looked & tasted wonderful.

It did cost a bit - about $200 in alcohol, $150 in other food, plus invitations, etc. But it was totally worth it, and there were 4 of us to absorb the costs. My parents were beaming for the next month. And all their friends were jealous that us (the kids) managed to pull it off - and all without them knowing! lol.

But I tell you - the look on my dad's face when I told him that his friend - who lives 25 hours away & hadn't been seen for 10 years -  was at the door... made it all worth it.

humm...an anniversary BBQ with a few friends and family...might just work.[]

I would love to make it a surprise, I'm thinking that between my brother sister and me we could pull together around $400 to $600 so that is just about the price range we are looking at. It might have to wait till the summer though, my cousin has a wedding this weekend, then my sister is graduation High School soon and so much going on in between but even if we do it this summer it will give us time to get it all together and maybe even save a little more for some extra stuff. Humm...just thinking...maybe a pass to a day spa and then when they get back have everyone there? A cake that looks like their wedding cake would be a great idea, I'll have to sneak into their old wedding album to see what it looked like.

I'm the oldest so it's sorta me who's going to be in charge but my siblings will also have some input as well, I'm wondering what they have come up with since the last time I spoke to them?

Keep the idea coming, they are great!

Yep - it took a LOT of sneaking around.

Trying to find names, phone numbers, & addresses of friends, and trying to get ahold of old photos. I'm sure my parents thought we were acting weird - but they never quite caught on... that is, until the beautiful summer morning when everyone started to show up.

Also when we invited the people - we requested that they didn't bring gifts. We told them that if they really wanted to give something, they could help with the costs of sending them on vacation somewhere. THEN, after the slideshow & cake, we brought out a box with all the "donations" in it, and presented that to my parents, saying it was from everybody. They blushed []

It was really a special day.  Hopefully yours goes well too []

I like the ideas that have been posted, but if y'all wanted to do something smaller, maybe make dinner for just your parents and immediate family?  For my parent's 30th Anniversary, we grilled steaks and did bake potatoes, etc. set up on a nice table and plates. I even tried my hand at a German Chocolate double layer cake (from scratch even!) that everyone loved. It wasn't all that much, but the fact that we did it FOR them meant a lot to my parents.  I don't think it matters what you do, but that y'all are taking the time and effort to do it for them. Congratulations to your parents!

Amy

For our 25th, our oldest son and his wife got us all together for dinner at Charlie Browns (both our sons, our oldest son's family and my sister and her family).  My mother and other sister couldn't make it.  They all chipped in to pay for dinner, and they're all chipping in for a weekend at a bed and breakfast for my husband and me.  They invited the rest of our bridaly party, too, but waited too long to make the plans and nobody else could make it.

I love the idea of the BBQ with family and old friends.  If it's this month though, that might be tough to arrange.  If it's not possible, I'd go for a nice dinner out, but I'd really try to do the picture idea as a gift.  If you know anyone who's good at scrapbooking, they can do some pretty amazing stuff.