• Look to the special couple to inspire decorations for a 50th wedding anniversary party.champagne cork image by Edsweb from <a href='http://www.fotolia.com'>Fotolia.com</a>
  
  In truth, the most important decorative element at a 50th anniversary celebration is the happy couple. While a huge variety of commercial decorations exists for this joyful and remarkable occasion, you can make your choices knowing that your decorations are merely a frame for the event. Whether you choose the traditional gold or use colors that pursue another party theme, you are decorating for an occasion for which memory and fondness provide the main glow.
  
  

Center Decorations Around the Couple

• Ask your guests of honor to help inspire the decorations. A wedding picture or another early photo of the couple can function as a greeting, a poster or a centerpiece. The picture could give you some clues for other decorations, such as kinds of flowers from a bridal bouquet or their first home garden. Note details in dress and wedding decoration that can be echoed in your party decorations. Ask about and include their favorite colors. Both their memories and their current interests and wishes will help shape your decor, whether it means damask tablecloths instead of plain ones, raiding yards for seasonal flowers or a blue vase on every table.
  
  

Encourage Guests to Help with Decorating

• Guests can be asked to bring photos involving the anniversary couple. Consider asking them to add a note as well, describing the occasion of the photo. Gathered ahead of time, these photos can be mounted on a bulletin board or foam-core poster as part of your decorations. If photos can be copied, make them into or add them to a memory book. Sewing crafters in the family or among friends could produce signature quilts that honor the anniversary couple. Grandchildren can be enlisted to make a giant card for guests to sign. Photos taken of the party can also be turned into a scrapbook for the anniversary couple.
  
  

Save Room for Public Notice

• Especially if your anniversary couple has a long record of community involvement, several strategies can result in truly distinctive decorations. Local newspapers often recognize milestone anniversaries, publishing both a wedding picture and a recent one. Display the published of the couple's anniversary at their party. Both the current U.S. President and his predecessors can be contacted and asked to send greetings to their long-wed constituents, as can other local, state and Congressional officials. Make requests a minimum of eight weeks before the event, and receive written from the White House and state leaders to post at your party.