50th surprise party ideas needed!!!?

Question

I am planning a big surprise celebration for my mom's 50th. I am looking for ideas for centerpieces and decorations. And even unique touches to the party. We expect to have about 100 people attend the event, so we will have about 15 or 16 tables (with 6 people at each table). I would like to incorporate photos of her when she was younger into the centerpieces, but how? I don't want to do just a boring frame at each table, I want something fun but classy. We are going to avoid the "over the hill" or death like themes. We want to give her a memorable party with all of her closest friends and family.

Any other party ideas anyone had would be great too!!!

Thanks everyone!!!

Answer 1

Having just had my 50th party...some thoughts. Everyone brought something with them that was at least 50 years old. Kind of like a show and tell. Husbands didn't count. My guests knew that I love purses, so everyone gave a few dollars and I went shopping for a special purse to remember my day by. My girls had put together a video of things that are older than mom. very funny!

Answer 2

She would have been a late teen during the Disco era, so you might to have that as a theme:)  Most people tend to always like the music they listened to as teenagers....    See if your bakery can make copies of the photos and put some on top of a few cupcakes!  You could tier those "special cupcakes" on a cupcake tree (available at craft stores, Kroger's, Walmart) ....   I'd use disco balls, mirror squares under fat candles and under the platters on the table .....  silvery confetti in the invitation envelopes ...

Answer 3

I had a surprise for my moms 60th- it turned out very well, she was very surprised! I didn't want to do the tacky over the hill c**p either so we did her favorite colors- pink, purple and silver theme. I sent out pretty purple invitations, and we had balloon arrangements made in those colors and put up tons of streamers in those colors as well- the place looked great! for the tables we had simple bud vases with very fragrant lillies in them and I had scattered those fake rose petals down the center and put two purple candle holders with candles on the side of the flower vase. I had also found inexpensive travel tin candles that I set at each placesetting for the guests as party favors (they were 50 cents at Michael's). We did a picture board of photos of my mom throughout her years from childhood till present, and she had the most fun showing off all the photos to everyone there! (I had to sneak into her photo albums and borrow her old photos!) I had also found a book on ebay on the year she was born- it has stuff in it like movies of that time, how much stuff cost, events form that year- and we had that set out on the picture board table for people to look through also- I also found a Life magazine on Ebay form the week she was born and gave that to her as a gift. We had buffet dinner and I had two bottles of wine and one pitcher of beer at each table for the guests as complimentary drinks- everything else besides soda they paid for on their own.

one idea you could do for centerpieces using photos if you don't want to do a picture board is to make photo candle holders- find large hurricane type candle vases (or smaller ones from the dollar store will work also) make color copies of whatever photos you want to use, and then get some decopage medium from the craft store and decopage the photos on the vases- let dry completely for at least one day, then stick some candles inside- will look beautifull all lit up! instuctions: http://www.allfreecrafts.com/decorations...

Answer 4

surround the pictures with flowers/flower petals. maybe place them on mirrors.

maybe look up stuff from the year she was born - news, music, movies, popular foods, candy, etc and incorporate that stuff

Answer 5

The best soloution i can think of is go into your local florist and have a look at the sorts of centrepeices, tell them what sort of thing she likes and see what they can come up with. Florists have very open minds and can cope with almost anything that is thrown at them.