THE PARTY'S OVER
Arnee and Sharon Cohen August 10, 2025 South Orange, New Jersey - celebrating 50th wedding anniversary with family and friends
Bakery cupcakes with gold sprinkles
Arnee and Sharon, in our dining room in South Orange, New Jersey, celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary with family and friends on August 10, 2025, the anniversary of our engagement in 1973, since we celebrated our actual June 15th anniversary in Denali, Alaska - the 50th state we visited
Cake topper from our June 15, 1975 wedding cake
Our dining room table being set up with Sheinkin’s Tel Avivian Challahs, pita, Tahini, Hummus with Ground Beef, Hummus with Mushrooms, Matbucha, Egg Salad, Cauliflower Tabbouleh, Sheinkin Pickles, Crunchy Cabbage, and more.
The side bar was filled with Sterno-heated containers for the salmon and chicken skewers, rice and lentils, ground beef pastries, and more.
The desserts displayed in the kitchen included chocolate mousse and non-dairy ice cream
The additional bakery desserts included cupcakes with gold sprinkles, black and white cookies, and three flavors of rugelach: vanilla, cinnamon, and chocolate
Sternos with salmon skewers, rice and lentils, chicken skewers and beef pastries
Non-dairy ice cream
Cookies from bake shop
Arnee and Sharon with brothers Stu, Nate, and Al in our backyard on August 10, 2025
Sharon with brothers Stu, Nate, and Al in our backyard on August 10, 2025
Taking a look back Sharon and Arnee June 15, 1975 West Orange, New Jersey
Weren’t we just planning 50th anniversary celebrations for our parents? How can it be ours already?
During our dating years, from 1969 until we married in 1975, I can recall conversations about how we’ll look back when we’re married for 50 years. Presto! Just like that, here we are.
Three children and three miscarriages in twelve years (no, you never forget. The pain remains). We had two losses before our firstborn, and one after the second live birth. Most recently, we were blessed with the births of five grandchildren in five years.
We celebrated our anniversary date, June 15th, in Denali, Alaska—the 50th state we visited! We continued the celebration on July 12th by sponsoring a Kiddush luncheon for our synagogue community.
Then, on August 10th, the anniversary of our engagement in 1973, we gathered 50 friends and relatives, including my three older brothers, to celebrate with us at our house, on what turned out to be a picture-perfect day. Our son Moss enthusiastically captured glorious pictures of Arnee and me with each guest.
A special FaceTime split screen of our elder son, Judd, and his family from Ohio, plus our daughter, Rina, and her family from Los Angeles, completed the picture. We showed them all to our guests by passing around Moss’s iPhone. It’s a modern world.
My mother would never have approved the repair work we undertook at our house months before the party. As usual, there were delays in the finishing touches and lots of last-minute work, including cleaning, rehanging, and in some cases, rearranging the artwork and pictures. Luckily for us, everything worked out and resulted in positive comments.
Now, we are looking forward to celebrating, in person, with all our children and grandchildren.
The party’s over, but not the celebrating or the memories that will linger on forever. I know because the memories from our parents’ 50th-anniversary parties have been with us for over 35 years.
According to the posts from friends on Facebook, texts from friends who were here, and from cousins who could not attend, it was a celebration of the century…well, half a century.
After I sent a picture from the party, my cousin Yuriy, who had to cancel the day before when his wife caught a virus, wrote, “Sharon you look gorgeous! (Hyperbole?) Glad to see all of you. Looking forward for more photos.”
My cousin Lynne was also very complimentary. She wrote from her preplanned vacation in California, “OMG! Your dress and shoes are to die for ❤️”
The morning after the party, Maureen, whom I’ve known since we worked together in 1975, two months after Arnee and I married, texted, “Oh what a wonderful celebration. Everything was done so nicely. You both looked great and loved your dress. Food was great and desserts-wow. I really liked the frozen dessert (like vanilla ice cream)-delicious. It was really nice to catch up with so many…”
Connie, whom I’ve “only” known since 1979, when we started graduate school at NYU, but who knew my brother Stu before that, since they both worked at the East Orange V.A., texted that first picture in this post that she took of Arnee and me on our front porch. She also texted the picture of the cupcakes on the kitchen table, and she wrote, “What a lovely party!!! You thought of every detail, and I loved talking to your family/friends.” She drove up from Allentown, Pennsylvania, with my cousins. She added, “One of life’s greatest pleasures on earth is spending time with family/friends. You’ve always connected everyone. ❤️❤️🥰”
I met my bridesmaid, Marie, who was here to celebrate, when I moved to Elizabeth in 1965. Arnee attended Hebrew School with another guest, Andrew, whose sister, living in Colorado and unable to join our 50th celebration, was one of my bridesmaids.
Marie posted a picture of her, her husband, Arnee, and me on Facebook. “Sharon & Arnee - 50th anniversary celebration. Wishing them many more anniversaries together. 💕"
Andrew and his wife also posted a picture on Facebook, showing Arnee and me with them. And, Andrew took pictures to send to his sister of the photos of her in our wedding album, which I had out on display.
Then, a Facebook post from another attendee showed her picture standing between Arnee and me, “A delightful time at Sharon and Arnee’s wedding anniversary celebration this past Sunday! Such a loving couple!” Her post had a comment from another guest, who stated, “Yes, it was a beautiful celebration with perfect weather.”
Days after the party, I spoke with our friend Harvey, whose brother Phil roomed with Arnee in college, and tutored me in Art History when I was in college. He said, “I wouldn’t have missed it. We go way back.” His sentiments warmed my heart, and I told him I knew some of the guests before I knew Arnee!
Besides my three older brothers and our cousin Paula, Arnee’s cousin Jerry has known us the longest. He became emotional thinking back to watching my parents pushing me in the baby stroller with my brothers at their side. At 92, Jerry, originally from Linden, New Jersey, where my parents lived the first few years of their marriage, and across the main road from where I lived as a child in Roselle, is about the only one I can think of who knew both Arnee and me before we were born.
My maternal grandfather delivered coal and ice to Jerry’s parents. Our daughter is named for Jerry’s mother, my mother-in-law’s older sister, who told me how honest my grandfather was and that she would talk with him about the old country when he made his deliveries.
I cannot thank all our nearest and dearest enough for making the day and our lives so special. We’ll have more pictures to share when Moss prepares them. In the meantime, enjoy some iPhone shots of memorabilia scattered around our house, along with pictures of some of the catered Tel Avivian food as it was being set up.
Celebrate life…when the party is over, you will have the memories. I hope they are as glorious as ours.
Andrew’s sister Barbara Sue, on the left, and Marie, second from right
Arnee’s brothers Bryan, z”l and Jeffrey, z”l on the left and my brothers Nate, Al, and Stu fourth, fifth, and sixth from left
Our wedding memorabilia
The pants Arnee and Sharon wore on our first date on October 4, 1969
Souvenir mugs and shot glasses from many of our travels
