What was your best celebration event?

Mine would be my first anniversary with my wife. It was the “paper” anniversary so I got tickets to a theater show. The show was Tony and Tina’s Wedding. It was the story of two kids from working class Italian families that were getting married. It was done in two parts: the ceremony and the reception. And it was 100% audience participation. When you enter the theater there is an usher there asking if you are with the Bride or the Groom so they know which side to seat you on. Prior to the ceremony, the groom gathered some guys (I was one) to help him write his vows that he was supposed to have written. He used what we gave him in the ceremony. The reception was complete with a buffet style dinner and dancing. At one point a Conga line formed up and ended up leaving the theater, going up the boulevard a little way and then winding back into the theater again. It was an outstanding experience and we loved it.

The only down side is that this was a very hard one to top on subsequent anniversaries.

My ex and I did a lot of really special anniversaries and birthdays. In no particular order:

blindfolded husband and took him to a restaurant called The Melting Pot

told husband we were just going on a picnic when I had actually made reservations at a B&B in Abingdon, VA. This was when we lived in Asheville, NC

husband made me wait in bedroom after I got home from work while he prepared a birthday surprise including crab legs, presents, tons of candles, music, fire in fireplace, etc

took husband to Atlanta to stay at his sister’s house while they were out of town. Surprise! He didn’t know I’d gotten tickets to see the Hawks

surprise! husband loved Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, so I took him to see the play in a dinner theater in Santa Barbara CA

surprise! husband made reservations at an ooh la la hotel in Asheville, NC for my birthday and surprised me with a black gerbil we named Smoky for the Smoky Mountains (we loved gerbils and over the years had several)

Went many time on picnics in Cade’s Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Have many many special memories of our marriage. Should have made it last :(

***Oh! and he told me he was falling in love with me at night on a beach on Sanibel Island! Can’t ask for much more than that!

He was my brother’s best friend all through college and beyond. We knew each other and I’d go with them to a bar now and then but that was it, he was just my brother’s friend. I didn’t know it, but he’d had a sort of crush on me, but I was married to my first husband. It was after I got divorced that we’d do things sometimes (with my brother, too). On the weekend that my brother got married (4th of July), John (not his name) was his best man. His date cancelled at the last minute, and longer story short, we got together that weekend and the rest was history for 15 years.

My parents 50th anniversary.

My dad graduated an advanced accounting degree (CMA) at the same time as my sister. They made front page in the society page.

I put on a 50th birthday party for my mom, This was in 1992. Family and friends came from all over the country. My mom had no clue. We had it at her house and my stepfather took her out shopping. When she came home, everyone was in her backyard. We had linen napkins, all beautiful, great hot food, catered,

@smudges Wow! Lots of good memories there! Congrats!

Not best, but memorable. I flew to Vegas New Year’s Eve 1999. My brother picked me up and we were going to his place to watch the fireworks when we helped a guy who had run out of gas. So we watched them from afar at a gas station.

I didn’t even have to think about my answer to this. 6 years ago, on my mom’s 80th birthday, we took her and my dad out to lunch at a nice restaurant. All of us siblings were there including the spouses of those of us who are married. We had such a lovely time and we took a picture, which I just saw on my Facebook memories last night so it was 6 years ago yesterday.

It was one of the last times that we were able to go out with both our parents because the next spring my dad had to go into long-term care and then after that my mom deteriorated as well. And I couldn’t believe, looking at that picture, how healthy they looked. I was just stunned at how much had changed over the past 6 years.