Help us design an anniversary cake!

We are having a 50th wedding anniversary for my grandparents. My mom (the new and improved MelanieS) and I were trying to decide how to decorate the cake, and we decided to come to our favorite resource!

Here's what we've got so far: The cake will have 2 tiers, the top one 6 inches, and the bottom 8-10 inches (we haven't decided yet). It will be iced with white buttercream and have white icing roses tipped in gold icing.

The big question:

Do we want ribbons, words, dots, scrolls, initials, etc? It would likely be in white icing.

We thought the words would be cute, but we’re not sure what to put. Maybe things like love, forever, celebration, 50 years, etc. Any ideas?

I like the words or maybe the year they were married on one and 2008 on the other? You can always do it in the same color icing so it doesn't detract from the rest of the cake.

I did an 80th birthday once where they had every name that family members had called the birthday girl throughout her life (mommy, sissy, nana, ellie, etc.) It was a really sweet way to personalize the cake from everyone there.

Ooh, I love that idea for the birthday cake with all the names they had been known by. I'll have to remember that one! I guess on that same theme, we could put all the kids and grandkids' names around the cake.

We had a cake with just roses in between the different layers for my grandparent's 50th. We had a picture of them at their hs prom (they never had an "official" wedding day- just a church with a handful of guests) and a picture of them now. I had created a bedazzled 50 (courtesy of all the BDW ideas) and placed that on top of the cake. I also made bedazzled initials to place in front of their cake.

I think the family names would be such a cute idea. Our cake would have been HUGE too!