How To Commemorate a Milestone Anniversary
Oct 24th, 2007 by Renee Michaels
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary (Diamond Anniversary) on November 20th. Married in 1947 at Westminster Abbey, HRH is the first monarch to celebrate 60 years of marriage. And for that, they will be honored with a public holiday and a commemorative issue of stamps and a silver coin. Well, 99.99% of us will not receive a public holiday for a milestone anniversary but what can the royal couple possibly give each other? After all, she already is the Queen and she owns the Crown Jewels…it doesn’t get much better than that. The royal couple did what many couples do to spread the love: they began their celebration recently by attending a charity auction dinner to raise money for a Gorleston hospital. And yes, their romance endures.
If your parents already have everything they need, don’t cram their lives with more chakas. Why not hold your own charity auction dinner to commemorate a milestone anniversary? Find out what their favorite charities are and in lieu of gifts, hold an auction with all proceeds going to their favorite charity. What can you raffle off? Well, this might be a good time to clean out some closets, but it would be great to offer special commemorative items that honor the couple. Here are some spiffy auction item ideas :
- Treat your parents like the royal couple they are and create a set of commemorative anniversary stamps with these real U.S. postage stamps that are customized with your parents photo and a message. A full sheet of 20 stamps is letter size, making it a perfect gift to place in a scrapbook or photo frame. There’s no minimum purchase or setup fee. Buy one sheet or 500 (get discounts with as low as a 2-9 sheet purchase). Slip them in a clear scrapbook holder or frame them: a perfect item to auction off!
- Create custom t-shirts with their photo and favorite romantic saying on it. Choose from classic, fashion and sports styles including hoodys.
- What about coffee or travel mugs with their photo and a custom message? Do they have a sense of humor…is there a funny saying you can put on a mug?
- Have their original wedding photo restored or have a local photographer take an “official” photo and buy a gorgeous frame for it. Or buy a double photo frame and place their original wedding photo plus a recent one. Title it “Then and Now, Still In Love.” Make this the last item to auction off.
Create auction paddles from posterboard in the shape of hearts. Or make it really simple and just print out a heart with your parents’ names and anniversary year on letter size paper and glue a long balsa stick behind it. You’ll need to add numbers. If you are a die-hard DIYer, make up ones that have each year they were married and a few words about that year, for example: 1968, Jean and Joe bought their first house. 1973, Kathleen was born. If you don’t have a special event for a year, just use one of our romantic quotes or marriage quotes. Add your parents funny sayings or pet names for each other. You could also use different photos of them throughout the years to glue on each paddle.
And heck, make it a public holiday for their anniversary! Order a custom banner and declare their wedding anniversary as a holiday. After all, aren’t they the King and Queen who inspired you about love?