Thursday 13 September 2012

A Big Surprise



While we were on holiday, my parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. The day before when my Dad joked that I should remind him, I told him that I had almost forgotten, and then on the actual day I just said “happy anniversary”-what a negligent daughter they must have thought they had! Little did they know that my sister Katie and I had been planning a surprise anniversary party for them for some months, and I was extremely nervous that I would let it slip! The latter stages of planning happened almost entirely over iMessage and FaceTime, with me in Switzerland, Katie in Bristol, and the party happening 2 weeks later in London! In the end, after lots and lots of cover ups and little white lies, the plan all worked out and they were suitably surprised! Here’s a picture of my parents with me, my sister and our family friend Sue when the lift doors opened into the function room at the Valley (our football team Charlton Athletic’s home ground) full of their friends and family!   


Of course, even though it was all undercover this occasion definitely required some serious cake action! Luckily, my friends parents were lovely enough to let me use their kitchen to create the main cake; and my Aunt and Uncle lent us their kitchen to make the rest of the food for the party, including a stand of lemon and vanilla cupcakes that went down a storm!
Here’s the main cake, the bottom tier was a 10” chocolate and the top a 6” coffee, both sugarpasted. On the join of the two cakes was a line of edible pearls, the glittery red “30” was made way in advance, I just cut the letters from fondant, covered them in glitter and left them to dry until they were sturdy enough to stand up against the top tier. On top, there was a small cluster of white roses which I dusted with pearl shimmer powder, as my parents’ original wedding cake was topped with roses, and 30 years is the Pearl wedding anniversary. The reason for the cake table decoration is probably quite clear, we are massive Charlton fans! I must point out- my sister actually made the Charlton flag in this picture- I thought it was amazing!

As I said, I also made cupcakes, just to absolutely make sure that we had enough cake to have a few leftovers ;-) the red glittery cupcakes were vanillas, and the white pearly cakes were lemon sponge filled with lemon curd with vanilla buttercream, they all went by the end of the night, with the exception of 2 we managed to get home to make sure my parents had tried them.


 The party was definitely worth all the planning and the sneakyness, it was a lovely evening and Mum and Dad were well and truly surprised! Also, if anyone (Charlton fan or not) is looking for a good party venue in South East London, the Valley was wonderful. The rooms are lovely, quite reasonable in price and the staff are all lovely and so helpful, definitely worth a look around!
Hayley x
  

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