addicted to recipes

So this past weekend we celebrated my parents 50th Wedding Anniversary. I know, I know what you’re thinking. How can I possibly have parents celebrating 50 years being married? Well, obviously, I was a very late in life child.

I have been so blessed to have an amazing family and my sister and I wanted to show my parents how much they mean to us by throwing them a dinner party. It was a small affair but one that still took a lot of planning. We invited my parents siblings, their godchildren and those who were in their wedding all those years ago. It was such a fun night.

And I have to give a huge thanks to Pinterest. Once I started planning, rather late by the way, I did all my idea gathering on Pinterest. I actually made a private board that I was able to add different ideas as I was planning. And I added ideas up until the last week when I forced myself to stop getting on Pinterest.

I used to be a huge scrapbooker and I knew I wanted to incorporate a lot of photos with the decor. I made this photo banner and added it to an old window pane. And who doesn’t love a photo booth. These props came from Etsy. The guestbook was actually a photo album that I will eventually add everyone’s photos to it and give to my parents.

On the memory table we had a photo from my parents wedding and a current photo of them too. This was featured with the lasso used in their wedding, their wedding album and bible. I also added branches and flowers to an urn and hung photos from the branches as well.

I made this 50 photo sign and used it as a backdrop for the head table. I loved going through old pictures to come up with this Martha Stewart/Pinterest inspired creation.

The dessert table was my favorite, of course. I ordered the vanilla and chocolate cakes and cupcakes from Lone Star Bakery in Round Rock. The small white cake was supposed to sit atop the 3-tier holding the cupcakes but in the end, it was not sturdy enough.

In addition to the cakes and cupcakes, I made my favorite Wicked Chocolate Caramel Squares, Muddie Buddies (recipe coming soon), and Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries. The strawberries were my favorite and another dessert I continually saw on Facebook and Pinterest. They were so simple yet quite tasty. In fact, I want some now!

Also, I’ll be sharing on my personal blog the instructions for many of the decorations I created for the party. I’ll update this post with the link when I do.

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries (Recipe slightly adapted from Nutmeg Nanny)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lb Strawberries, washed and hulled (use a paring knife to remove the green leaves and make a hole to fill the strawberry)
1 – 8 oz container Cream Cheese, softened
6 Tbsp (less than 1/2 c) Powdered Sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4-5 graham crackers, finely crushed

Instructions:

In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla together. Mix with an electric mixer until combined.

Place cream cheese mixture either in a piping bag or a Ziploc bag. Fill strawberries.

Dip cream cheese portion of strawberries into the graham cracker crumbs.

Place in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Optional: Drizzle with chocolate (I was going to do this but my chocolate burned and I didn’t have a chance to go buy more before the party!)