• Golden anniversaries are often celebrated with friends and family.golden bow image by Pix by Marti from Fotolia.com
  
  A golden anniversary commemorates a couple's 50 years of marriage. After a half-century of matrimony, many such couples celebrate the occasion. If your parents, grandparents, friends or family members are celebrating their golden anniversary, hosting a dinner for them is one way to show your love and appreciation of their commitment to one another.
  
  

Invitations

• If you can get a hold of the couple's original wedding invitation, use it for inspiration for invitations to the dinner. If it had a picture or poem on it, use the same picture or a variation of it on the current invitation. If there was specific embossing or a certain font, replicate that in your modern invitation. Use gold-lined envelopes for your invitations, emphasizing the significance of the event and setting the theme.
  
  

Guests

• Invite the couple's children and grandchildren, as well as siblings, parents, nieces, nephews and other close family members. Also include their friends, especially those who attended the original event. If their officiant is still alive, invite him as well. You may want to ask the couple's maid of honor and best man to help you with the party. They may be interested in giving a toast or participating in the dinner somehow. They can also give you details about the wedding day, such as food served and music played.
  
  

Menu

• Depending on the formality of the dinner, your menu could range from a light dinner to a multi-course meal. Find out what the couple ate on their wedding day. Incorporate some of the same dishes. Include modern options as well, including golden potatoes or golden apples. Offer golden-colored wine or apple cider to drink.
  
  

Decorations

• Use gold rimmed dishes and glasses. You may even want to rent gold-plated silverware. Use a gold or white tablecloth and gold or white linens. Using a white option will highlight gold accents. Use a gold-colored napkin ring to cover each napkin. Buy golden frames and place pictures of the couple throughout their years in the frames. Set the frames along the middle of a long table or in the middle of each round table.
  
  

Activities

• Buy a guestbook or matte around a photo for everyone to sign, with a golden ink pen. For a unique guestbook, purchase a photo album and give each guest an index card. Instruct guests to write a special memory and their names on the index cards and tuck them into the photo album. Intersperse pictures between the index cards. Play music that the couple played at their wedding.