Unlocking my Inner Party Planner

Last month we celebrated the 30th wedding anniversary of my wonderful In-Laws, Carl and Carol. It was a trying year for us all as a family so we needed to celebrate the love and joy that God blessed this family with for 30-plus years.  We needed to be reminded that through it all, God continually places people in our lives that love us and want to celebrate with us at every joyous occasion.

I am a planner. I love to plan out everything.  It is safe to say that sometimes I go a little over board with party planning, but once I get going, it  is hard for me to pull back.  Once the ideas started rolling on the anniversary party, I was all in. After months of planning, organizing, crafting, and creating, it was finally time for the big event. The theme was based around books and Scrabble - common interests between the two of them.  

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I wanted to make sure that Carol and Carl had plenty of pictures to not only look back on this specific day, but this life and this family that they enjoy. Not only did we go through pictures, but we collected memory cards from all of the guests to go in a scrapbook for them to read time and time again.

What I really enjoyed about planning this was deciding what to bake (in order to please my inner baker!).  I went through probably 50 different ideas before settling on these: scrabble tile cookies and two wedding cupcake cakes.  The cookies were pretty basic but I knew the cupcake cakes would be a challenge.

I found a great idea on .Life and other Projects via Pinterest for a wedding dress cupcake cake, which I immediately latched on to.  Before I considered this for the anniversary party, I spent a long time trying to find an excuse to make this cake.  Once I decided to make the cake for the party, naturally I needed a tuxedo cake; however, I couldn't find a tutorial for that one. I was on my own.  I spent time planning where the cupcakes should lie on the board in order to make the best looking dress and tux.  All in all, I baked 6 dozen cupcakes for the two cakes.  6 dozen.  That's a lot of cupcakes. To make it easier, all the cupcakes were a standard vanilla.  Here was the final product.  I am so proud of these!

The dress used a standard butter cream topped with crystal-type sprinkles in order to give it a shimmering look.  I used craft pearls and a broach for the decorations.  

 This cake was amazing!  I had a picture in my head of what it should look like but I was so nervous that when it was all said and done, the final result would be below my expectations.  However, this far exceeded every single expectation I could ever have for this cake.  I used a chocolate butter cream and a vanilla butter cream for the icing; chocolate chips are the buttons; the bow tie is made out of brown ribbon; and the boutonniere is from premade Wilton roses. After putting the final touches on the cake, I remember jumping up and down with excitement over these successful creations!



Everything was beautiful at the party. It was an honor to be a part of such an event.  What an amazing way to commemorate the beautiful marriage of two wonderful people.   I am honored to be a part of this family and am happy that I was able to find a way to show them that.