We recently had a big event in my family when my parents reached their Golden Wedding Anniversary and celebrated 50 years of marriage. We all gathered near our family home north west of Mackay in Nth Queensland, for a party with family and friends. It was such a lovely weekend, catching up with friends of my parents who were such a big part of my childhood and celebrating such an important occasion.
Mum & Dad on their wedding day in 1963
I offered to decorate the tables...no mean feat considering I had to bring everything up on the plane. There were a lot of long tables to decorate and as my budget was tight, I scoured op shops for glassware with gold accents, and gathered cheap glasses from those wonderful Asian stores that sell everything bright and tacky at rock bottom prices. I ended up with about 60 little vases all packed up inside a large suitcase. Gold spray paint was my best friend and worked a treat to add some gold accents to the plain glassware.
My plan was to buy yellow & cream roses to fill the vases but sadly Mackay didn't have the same vision as I did and we couldn't any! So I had to compromise and use soft pink and cream roses with chrysanthemums and greenery to accent. Does this type of thing only happen to me or do you have the same problem of knowing exactly what you want but not being able to find it?
Problem number 2 was when I saw what the venue were planning to use as tablecloths...very thin white plastic!! My heart sank! Now this is why I loved living in the country when I was growing up and being from a small community. My parents are part of a theatrical group so we just raced over to the Theatre (yes we have a fully functioning proper theatre in my home town of 50 people!) and grabbed the containers of white tablecloths that Mum had made at some stage. I spent an afternoon ironing but they were perfect!
Although I was a bit disappointed that all of my plans and colour scheme had to change at the last minute, the tables in the end looked lovely. My gorgeous man,who was way out of his element, rushed around helping me set all of the flowers up along the tables in a very limited time. We finished in the nick of time (I felt like I was on Master Chef & the clock was ticking).
One of the highlights of the day was when my uncle bought in a massive surprise present for my parents...a Papal Blessing from the Pope. The blessing has beautifully hand painted calligraphy with the Papal seal & signature on parchment paper and was a wonderful surprise.
I hope you haven't minded me sharing this special family occasion with you.
Take care....Di
