A special kind of sixty

There are no words to describe how I feel about my Aunt Marissa. Growing up she was like a second mother to me. We would go out on special dates together with my younger cousins, her two daughters, for Lime Rickeys and Chuckie Cheese. When she would drop me back off at home, I would cry. Cry because I loved being with her and never wanted to leave. It's pretty incredible having a person you love this much in your life.

With that said, when my Aunti Marrisa (who looks 35) turned sixty, I told my cousin that I wanted to do everything in my power to help.

Luckily, my super hero powers include party planning.

My sister and I spent some time brainstorming with our cousin Bailey. Aunti Marissa will be forever young, loves her family and has a boho style. We envisioned wild flowers, bubbly cocktails and metallic gold details.

We decided on brunch for the party. Aunti Marissa loves good coffee, bagels and cake. So we got it all.

We loved how the table runner turned out for our Mom's 70th birthday last year, so we went with the same type of table design, but with seasonal greenery and flowers. Since the party was just after Thanksgiving there was a lot of fern, pine and wild berries happening. It was beautiful.

Lunch was made by my cousin Bailey and yours truly. We stayed up into the wee hours the day before the party making chopped egg salad, crudite, mini quiche, deviled eggs, maple bacon and a fruit platter.

Of course we set a mimosa bar with a variety of juices and fruit to garnish. And we set a large pot of coffee up in the kitchen.

The final detail was in the photos. Aunti Marissa cherishes her memories and keeps everything! We pulled out some of our favorite shots with her family and best friends, all who were at the party, and tied these to the bottom of our balloon strings.

Then there was the cake...

For some reason when cake came to my mind for this party, all I could think about was caramel. I designed this cake with Truffle Toronto with a salted caramel flavor on the inside. It was out.of.this.world. Everyone at the party was raving!

Needless to say, Aunti Marissa was speechless and more then touched by this bash. We love you Marissa. And wish you nothing but happiness for the next 60 years.

Thank you to the amazing Toronto talents who helped us put this all together: Flowers: Sweet Woodruff Cake: Truffle Toronto Balloons: Balloon Queen Photography: Sandra Brzezinski