Our best friends have been engaged for several years and making wedding plans for this year. Both of them are also celebrating their 50th birthday this year. Rather than having two separate big birthday celebrations and a wedding celebration, they want to have one BIG wedding/birthday celebration. This is the second marriage for both of them so they don't want all the hoopla associated with a first wedding. Both are fun-loving people and they mostly want a "party" type atmosphere. They are planning on a smaller guest list for the wedding ceremony and sit-down dinner but will be inviting a large circle of friends and not-so-close family for the party afterwards.

Our gift to them is their wedding cake and/or birthday cake. I've been racking my brain to come up with a tiered cake that looks like a wedding cake but still incorporates their 50th birthdays.

I need help!!! Any suggestions? I don't know if I should make two separate cakes although I get the feeling that they would like just one.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Road of Life cake with the wedding celebration at the top.

How about film strip canisters, each with photos of their individuals lives, and then the film running together with photos of them together?

Thanks for the great ideas! I don't think I'll be able to do the film strip theme because one of our other friends is making a large framed poster with these types of pictures as her gift. She's already gathering pictures from all of our "crowd" so I wouldn't want to steal her thunder.

The road of life cake sounds like something I could do. Maybe I can make some figurines to represent their children, create some scenes of activities they like to do, all along the road of life. Then I can make a little bride & groom to put at the top.

Trying to blend the wedding theme with the birthday theme is going to be a challenge!!!

Thanks everyone!

For the road of life: You could start two roads, one for each, and have them spiral around the cake. But where they would meet, have one bridge over the other, until you get to the top tier where they meet and the two figures are in a tux and gown. just an idea. Good luck!

My idea is certainly simpler than the others, but what about gift boxes? You could do one girly one, one masculine one, and a pretty, white wedding one on top.

You could make the "road" and accents in pale colors... to keep it more wedding-ish. But... if they are looking for fun, then it might not matter too much if it looks like a wedding cake.

You could have each tier represent something they love... and have a mini wedding cake (like a 1-2-3" cake) be the topper.

I think you are right Jeanne - nice soft colours because I want it to look like a wedding cake most of all. Maybe white with soft ivory and with a touch of light peach or rose. I was thinking the ivory (or maybe pearlized white?) for the swirling roads with the light peach flowers. I was thinking maybe a couple of hearts mixed in with the flowers with their names and 50th birthday towards the top tier. Same thing with three teeny tiny babies under a blanket with the children's names on the blanket (although their children are now grown) tucked in among little flower clusters along the swirling "road". Each little cluster of flowers would have a tiny surprise in them to represent different aspects of their life. Sort of like a "Polly Pocket" kind of deal.

What do you all think about the little hearts and babies?