{ANNIVERSARY} Celebrating 40 years

This last June my parents celebrated their 40 year wedding anniversary. They celebrated a little bit at home but the real party happened when our whole family was together for our family reunion in July. My parents have always included the family in celebrating their anniversarys. As a kid I remember going out to dinner with the whole family on my parents wedding anniversary. Then after we'd get to pick something out at a book store. They thought of their wedding anniversary as celebrating the family as a whole. So it was fitting this year for their 40th to be all together and celebrate. My mom planned it all (with a little help from me). 

Ruby is the color for a 40th wedding anniversary so we used red a lot in decorating (cloth napkins, table runner). After family pictures in our reunion shirts we met back up at the cabin we'd been renting for the week and had dinner. Kids sat first and ate. My brother gave a toast and then my parents each had a little speech both expressing their love for each other and our family. 

My parents gave each person in the family a box with a tag that says "Time flies when you're having fun" and inside each box was a note with a watch. I had helped my mom pick out the watches for each person (24 watches!) and it was fun to see their reactions. (click link for the watches: mens, womens, little boys, little girls) 

My parents and I made these triangle napkin rings out of wood. Triangle was a symbol we used throughout our reunion so it was fitting. The galvanized buckets held little goodie bags with noise makers (bad idea!) and candy.

My sister Jane painted this sign to hang.

I printed off about 40 pictures of our family over the years, starting with their wedding day and strung them up. 

Cheers!

For the adults we set out a piece of paper with some Metcalf family trivia. It was fun to bring up some old family memories and see who remembered what. (ie. name all the family cars, family vacations, neighbors over the years, etc)