Ideas for 43Rd Wedding Anniversary Celebration

The best cake on short notice hands-down is Sam's club!! Their bakery might even be able to put a photo on... 1/2 sheet cake will serve 20-30 people easily, full sheet twice that (all depends on how large you slice).

For travel decorations - check out different Goodwill & thrift shops... get retro luggage pieces & find things that represent different "destinations" - have a Paris suitcase, a London, a Hawaii, etc...

Go to Half Price Books & get some travel magazines, & cut out pictures to make collage boards of the different destinations as well... put up around the room.

With supplies from the Dollar Store, you could make little "passports" for the guests (requires some creativity on your part!!).

Have your parents traveled? Make their actual trips from the past the destinations on the passport.

Airplane theme - Dress in a navy jacket/skirt & greet everyone as a flight attendant, on Flight 43 - Destination Marrital Bliss! (or something cute like that)
Serve peanuts & beverage-cart cocktails. For the food, serve it on cheap plates (rectangle) with compartments, like the trays of airline food.

Cruise ship theme - "The Love Boat" Dress in whites & be the ships Cruise Director for social events. Prepare a schedule that is posted with different activities on board (shuffleboard, art auction, yoga, wine tasting, etc. - do a google search for common cruise activities) Destinations can then be ports of call on the route.

Have fun with it!! - T.

The modern gift for 43 years is travel. Since it's this weekend you don't have much time but I was thinking of some sort of travel theme. Or even as a gift idea you could find somewhere just outside Chicago to travel to for a weekend (Lake Geneva?) and pay for the hotel or something. Or if there is a train with a dining car you could buy them tickets for dinner. Just some thought provoking ideas....It doesn't have to be travel in the sense of a plane trip to be meaningful though!

If you want to go with the travel theme mentioned before, you could go with a journey theme - the journey of their lives together so far. You could put together a slide show or use moviemaker and make a movie of all of the actual places they have traveled to together, or just use "journey" as a metaphor and create a movie showing the high-points of their lives together so far.

At this late date, I don't think you can get a cake done with the picture on it.
You do not say if it is a small family party, or a big party. That would help. For a gift I would give them a weekend away. As far as decorations your best bet would be to go to a party store and pick a theme. I assume you have food taken care of already. Good luck and have fun.