25th Anniversary Gift?

July 17, 2006 1:59 PM

My future in-laws are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary this month. What can my fiancee, his 3 siblings and I get them that will make their day?

He works for a Catholic College and she is a church organist. They are quite religious, but liberal and enjoy spending time with their family. He travels quite a bit for work, so they prefer to spend time together at home rather than travel together. He is an excellent Italian cook and she is a wonderful baker. They have a home with a large deck and a very nice backyard.

Previous successful gifts have included: a large pasta bowl for family meals; a picture frame filled with family photos; a chimenea; tons of books.

We are an extremely close family and this is a very special occasion and I would love to find them something really special, but we probably should have started looking a month ago.

posted by elvissa to human relations (13 comments total)

How much are you looking to spend?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:03 PM on July 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

Since it's a big day and it's 5 of us, we are probably in the $250 - $500 range.
posted by elvissa at 2:05 PM on July 17, 2006

This is more of a DIY thing, but for my grandparents 50th the family made them a cement walkway and then everybody put their handprints in it and signed it. A nice momento plus a garden path in one. Apparently you can buy molds to pour cement into that look like brickwork, then just pull them up and voila! it turned out cute, lots of tiny grandkid handprints.
posted by gilsonal at 2:18 PM on July 17, 2006

A large, high quality formal family portrait would be something that would bring them pleasure and memories for many years. Everybody gets dressed nicely and agrees to be on their best behavior for whatever time is needed, and enjoys as much as possible making a great group portrait, and looking ahead to doing it again on their 50th.
posted by paulsc at 2:29 PM on July 17, 2006

My favorite gift is another DIY cheapy gift. Go on eBay and try to find postcards from places they've lived during the era that they lived there. Then frame the postcards.
posted by k8t at 2:38 PM on July 17, 2006

My in-laws are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary soon and my girlfriend and her siblings are putting together a scrapbook filled with memorabilia and photos from their marriage so far. Quite a lot of effort, but little cost and lots of impact. Maybe a bit close to the family photo frame but I always think this kind of thing goes down very well for "big event" type anniversaries.
posted by greycap at 2:38 PM on July 17, 2006

Find their wedding album and have all of the photos professionally restored.

Me and my siblings did this for my parents 35th anniversary and it went over very well. :)
posted by Lord_Pall at 2:38 PM on July 17, 2006

A nice hammock for snuggling!
posted by Sara Anne at 2:40 PM on July 17, 2006

Well, you said "at home," but I see you're in Westport. As it's their 25th, consider celebrating at the beautiful, romantic Silvermine Tavern. Bonus: Jazz days in July, and you can book them a private room upstairs for drinks ... and a bit o' argentine canoodling!
posted by rob511 at 3:29 PM on July 17, 2006

A birthstone tree. It isn't the prettiest of websites, but I've given one to a bunch of people in my family for events like that and they are always a big, big hit. My parents have one that is completely full. You'll have money left over, but it's a big hit in my (very Catholic, if that matters) family.
posted by dpx.mfx at 5:10 PM on July 17, 2006

Something that was done in my family: Send index cards to friends and family members, and ask them to write a favorite memory they have of the happy couple, whether funny, or sentimental. The returned cards can be put in a scrapbook/memory book, and will offer hours of reminiscing for your in-laws. Perhaps get current snapshots of each person to go with the memories. It's cheap, but effective.
posted by Seabird at 10:13 PM on July 17, 2006

I second the large photo idea. I work for one of the mall studios and they've really come a long way in quality. I happen to know that for 300 bucks you can probably get a 16X20 framed photo, 10-15 sheets of pictures, and some bells and whistles on top of that. Those types of places also take a lot of poses, especially if you let them know you're expecting to spend money. So you'll get the whole family, the core family, just the parents, the grandkids, and any other combination you could want.

If you go that route, call ahead, as how many people they can fit in their studio. You'll want the number to be about 5-10 more than you'll actually have there. Ask around and see if any of the young mother's have a favorite photographer and request them.

Oh, if they have it, buy the high resolution CD. Most of these places will have a special that has the CD included. Just get that package and make duplicates elsewhere. No reason to pay their sheet fees if you don't have to.
posted by nadawi at 11:02 PM on July 17, 2006

For my parents' recent 40th anniversary, my brother and I hired a professional photographer to take group photos. Not just a single photo of all of us, but my parents together, each of us with our parents, etc. We also bought a frame from Redenvelope and had it engraved. On their anniversary, we presented the frames with a note inside saying when the photographer was arriving.

They loved it.
posted by stonefruit at 6:37 PM on July 26, 2006