25th Anniversary Party - Chocolate Fountain Treats

For my parents' 25th wedding anniversary, my sisters and I planned a surprise party for them.  In the beginning we told our parents that we were going to take them out to dinner on a certain night for their present.  Because we didn't give them any details about the night, they were anxious about it and very curious!  This was good because while they just thought that they were going out to dinner, we were actually having a party for them when they got back, therefore, the dinner distracted them from anything that might seem suspicious. 

Their anniversary is in October, so my two sisters and I started tithing 10% of all our earned money towards the party.  A couple months before, we got the invitations from partywares.com.  We were able to personalize them with what we wanted to say and the type of paper to print them on.  Because #25 is silver, we chose shiny silver cardstock.  The invitation was a folded-up envelope card: this means that you fold up the card and it is also an envelope.  Not only was all the information in the card, but one of the folds was a prepaid postcard that the guests could rip off and R.S.V.P. back to us in order to tell us if they could come or not and how many people were attending. 

We sent our parents out to dinner at about 6 p.m. because their reservation at Gabriel's was at 6:30 and the drive was about an hour away.  We gave them a boutonniere and corsage and had our neighbor, we owns a limousine company, drive them in a limo.  We also called the restaurant and talked to their soon-to-be-waiter ahead of time and made sure that they were given a bottle of champagne, and if needed, he would stall them. 

Right when they left, we finished cleaning the house and rearranging the furniture.  During this time we also set up the food and beverages.  In the kitchen, we had a bar with my sister and her friends as the bar tenders.  We offered beer, wine and other non-alcoholic beverages.  We also had two chocolate fountains that we borrowed from two of our family friends; for these, we made white and milk chocolate and put out various foods to dip them in including strawberries, bananas, cream puffs, marshmallows, pound cake and pretzels.  In another room, we had some homemade and store-bought appetizers like shrimp cocktail, vegetarian Vietnamese spring rolls, quiche and edamame. 

In some other spaces, we had a table with a special ordered wedding cake (made with sponge cake, filled with jam, custard and whipped cream and covered with whipped cream and silver decorations to go along with the theme).  Also on this table, we had a picture of them at their wedding and another picture of them that was more recent; we also set out their wedding scrapbook/album that out mom made years ago. 

Finally, since my sister works for an entertainment company, we hired a DJ and put him upstairs in the balcony with an empty space below for dancing.  As the guests arrived within the hour before, we had a coat check in another room with numbers for them and a numbered piece of paper to tag on their item (coat, purse).  While everyone waited for our parents to arrive, they enjoyed food, conversation and looking through the scrapbook.  When our parents were close to our house, our limo driver called us to tell us that we should hide most of the lights were off and everyone came into the foyer of the house. 

When they came into our house, we turned on the lights and yelled SURPRISE!  Our parents were SO shocked, they had no idea and they both were crying tears of joy Just seeing our mom's face was enough for us!!!  Once they were done with they excessive emotions, my sister and I made a toast to them and then they were able to say hello to all of their party guests!  The party when until about 11:30 (so it when for a couple of hours).