How to organize a mail/card event for parents' 50th anniversary?

June 3, 2020 3:03 PM

My parents' 50th wedding anniversary is in August, and my sibling and I would like to organize some kind of celebration for them via mail. We were imagining that we would contact all of our extended family/friends in late June and ask them to mail a greeting card and/or note to our parents closer to the day. Have you ever done this before? Do you have any tips? Is there something bigger and better we can do, via mail?
posted by unknowncommand to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

I would have them mail the notes to you instead of straight to your parents. That would allow you to make a presentation of all of the cards and notes. It would also mean that people could send it to your right away, while they are thinking about it, and you can hold on to them. Also, you would know who sent something and so target your reminders to the right people.

You could also ask them to send a photo (via mail or email) along with a caption or story that you make into a photo album for your parents in addition to the cards.

I'm sure your parents will be delighted.
posted by metahawk at 3:12 PM on June 3, 2020 [11 favorites]

I did this for my partner's 40th birthday. I gave myself more than sic months and I had folks send cards, pictures, trinkets, whatever, to me. I put them all in a fancy box and presented the box as a gift.

I had all the cards &c sent to me because it was meant to be a surprise. AND because I could keep track of which people needed a nudge or reminder more easily if I got all the cards in advance.
posted by crush at 3:13 PM on June 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Here's an idea: My friend has just asked us all to go to VidHug to upload a 1-minute video greeting for her husband's 60th birthday.
posted by wisekaren at 3:27 PM on June 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Get some foamboard and a couple patterns of gold paper giftwrap, to make a virtual 'quilt.' Spray adhesive is helpful. Use double sided tape to post cards after your folks have had a chance to read them. Buy or make some extra cards to fill in any blanks. I've seen this done, and it looks beautiful. Ask friends to share a piece of music from 50 years ago, and make a youtube playlist for them.
posted by theora55 at 3:38 PM on June 3, 2020

I think the fun part could be the ongoing stream of cards arriving the weeks before their anniversary date. You could send people envelopes and fun stamps to use (ordered from the US Postal Service website of course), with maybe fun prompts of what they could write, websites where they can order greeting cards, and your parents’ address. This way, you’re removing some of the extra work of getting a stamp or envelope for a letter. Some people might do it when they get it, and you can send them a text/email to follow up closer to the date as another reminder.
posted by inevitability at 4:06 PM on June 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

I was on the receiving end of something like this a few weekends ago for my graduation, and let me tell you the BEST part for me was being able to sit and open/read through all the cards at once! It was so impactful and I felt so loved! So if you want to be in charge of collecting the cards and then sending them on all at once in a big box, that would be awesome! And very reminiscent of sitting down after a wedding to read through the cards then :)
posted by katypickle at 4:35 PM on June 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

For a virtual retirement party, I had everyone use Newly Words, which has a really nice variety of formats that people can respond with (photos, short notes, lists, etc.) which you then edit and you can have printed out. It is super handy if you want to try something which results in fewer germs but still allows everyone to contribute.

Tribute is similar but video only.

There's a lot of really interesting virtual party ideas out there right now (virtual retirement party may actually be a better search term for y'all even though of course you're celebrating an anniversary). You can do a lot to make the event feel special even when everyone is far away.
posted by librarylis at 5:55 PM on June 3, 2020

For my grandparents' 40th my mom mailed scrapbook pages to family and friends and had them fill them with reminiscences/notes/poems/photos/drawings and send them back to her to be compiled. For my parents' 40th my sister and I did a more constrained version, where we made a coloring book page of our parents and had family and friends color them in to represent their "real" selves. In both cases the real gift was the collected book, an outpouring of love that is conveniently anthologized and easy to revisit.
posted by babelfish at 9:45 PM on June 3, 2020

Boomerang is a service that coordinates this for you. I just filled out a Boomerang card for an upcoming bday.
posted by pearlybob at 9:02 PM on June 4, 2020