How to Throw a (HUGE!) Surprise Party

A few days ago, Maria asked if Ryan could write a post about how he managed to pull off a large-scale surprise party, and I thought that was a great idea for a post! Ryan, though, is still recovering from writing my birthday post, so I decided to have mercy on him and do the writing myself. But all the ideas are his!

(Quick throwback before we start: here is a post I wrote two years ago about how we threw a much smaller surprise party for my mom when she turned 80. It was a cookies and canvas themed party, and we had a pretty tight budget. So if smaller parties and tight budgets are your gig, you can check out that post!)

#1 Tip for Throwing a Massive Surprise Party: Don't try to do it all by yourself. Get help! Ryan thought up the party on his own. He came up with the theme and per my friend Amber, he also did a lot of his own research in coming up with ideas of what he wanted things to look like. I like to give him credit, because he deserves it! But he also had help from some creative friends and family members in coming up with decoration ideas, and he certainly had help from friends and family in physically executing the party. So if you want to throw a big party, find yourself a good loyal team, because you'll need them!

* Location: If you're going to throw a big party, you need a big space to do it! This can be tough on a budget, but we were fortunate that the church all of Ryan's family attends is very generous with their space. They allow people in the church to use the fellowship hall for gatherings, and even though we don't attend there, Ryan's mom was able to reserve the room for this party, so he had adequate space without adding to the cost. (Bonus: because it's a fellowship hall, it has a huge kitchen, so they were able to do food prep and cleanup right there. It also had plenty of parking, which was helpful.)

* Finding Guests: Ryan wanted to bring in as many people as he could, so he had to get pretty sneaky. Typically you could scour Facebook or other social media for ideas of guests and ways to contact them, but Ryan does not have one single social media platform in his name, so he had to go old school! This was doubly tough for him because I work from home and we rarely do anything apart, so I was never away enough for him to have a lot of sneaky time. Apparently a few times while I showered and got ready in some mornings, he sneaked onto my computer to steal contact information, and he would also sneak onto my phone to find contacts in the rare moments that I left it unattended. He also used networks of friends and family to reach people he didn't know how to reach otherwise. (Note: If he missed you, he feels terrible! He did his very best to think of everyone!)

He sent invitations via mail when possible, but he also texted a photo of the invitation to people he could reach best that way. And for the ones he mailed, he used a co-worker's return address stamp so anything that came back undeliverable would go to her house and not ours. I thought that was a pretty brilliant move. He asked them to RSVP by text to his phone and then banned me from his phone for the weeks leading up to the party. (I didn't find that ban suspicious because I knew he was working on SOMETHING for my birthday and I didn't want to spoil it by finding out whatever he was hiding on there!) PS - He made the invitations through Walgreens.

* Decorations: He did a great job with his and probably had more help from others executing this part than anything else. He did set up his own Pinterest account (which made me fall in love with him even more!) for this adventure, and he knew he was doing a Beauty and the Beast theme, so he found a lot of his decoration ideas on Pinterest. (And I know some of his team helpers gave him decorating ideas too.)

- The centerpieces on the tables were constructed from wooden trays that his family has a stash of following his sister's wedding last year. These trays make appearances at pretty much all the parties. They added old books, some of which were borrowed from family members and others were checked out/purchased from a local library. (The library had a big sale right before my party and our sister-in-law, who homeschools, bought several books to have in their home library. Double win!) They also added teacups, which I believe were borrowed from family when possible and some were purchased from the Goodwill.

- I adore roses, and Ryan knows that, so he bought 42 roses and used them as part of the decorations. They were incorporated into the centerpieces and also used other places around the room.

- Ryan found a website called Birthday in a Box, and he purchased some of the supplies there. He said he got ribbons, balloons and balloon weights there. He bought a little helium tank at Sam's Club that provided enough helium for 50 balloons. And our sister-in-law found a lot of the paper products and other items at Oriental Trading.

- For the wall décor, he went with pictures, because he knew it would make me so very happy. He made a file on his computer using pictures he saved on his phone, pictures he took from the blog, pictures he took from my computer when I wasn't looking, and in some cases, he took pictures of pictures in our scrapbooks. He had them printed at the store and they hung them using twine and clothespins. His co-worker Amanda has a Silhouette machine (similar to a Cricut, if you aren't familiar) and she cut out vinyl letters that went above the picture groupings to title them. He divided the pictures into four themes: Forty years of Bekah, Family and Friends, Ryan and Bekah, and The Many Faces of Bekah.

- He set up a photo booth, too, because he knew how much I would love that. This booth didn't have any props (which was totally fine) but was a pretty backdrop! Apparently initially our sister-in-law had ordered a gold glittery one-time-use backdrop from Oriental Trading, but his mom owns a whole system for hanging curtain backdrops, so she found one just like it in fabric that they used instead. If you're on a budget, you could most certainly go with one-time use backdrops or even use wrapping paper or plastic tablecloths for a backdrop. I've done that! They made a sign using scrapbook supplies that said Be Our Guest.

- They also had these giant balloons that served as a second photo booth. I LOVED them.

- They borrowed a tea set and hand mirror from Ryan's grandmother, found a clock at the Goodwill, and some friend of our sister-in-law's had a child's toy Lumiere, so they used all that on the cake table as decoration too!

* Cake and Food. Ryan ordered a cake from a cake shop here in town, (Indulgence Bakery, if you're local and want to know) that was DELICIOUS! He wanted it to be a decoration for the party, though, so he asked family members to make sheet cakes and cupcakes to actually serve. His mom and her entourage also made snack foods to eat. (Meatballs, fruit cups, chicken salad puffs, cheeseballs, veggie tray, etc.)

* Photographer. Initially Ryan had asked his mom to take pictures at the party, since she enjoys it and is so good at it, but then when he asked her to help with food too, he didn't want to overwhelm her, so he ended up hiring a photographer to come in and cover the party. Her name is Barb and she is AMAZING. She took our pictures last fall (including the one in the blog header) and we enjoyed working with her. I highly recommend having a picture person at parties like this! As soon as I saw her, I knew we were covered! She took candids and posed pictures, too.

* Belle. Okay, so you don't need a princess to throw a huge surprise party, but since she was sort of central to the party, I'll tell you about her. The girl who played Belle is a friend of ours from the church we used to attend. I knew she had a little side gig of playing princesses at parties and had mentioned that to Ryan several months ago! So he brought her in to be Belle, because she's my favorite! She wandered around, doing photo opps with kids and adults alike, and everyone loved her!

* The actual party execution.

- You have to have a reason to get the guest of honor to the party. I was told (via a fake invitation) that my niece's birthday party was taking place that day and I was going to take pictures. Her parties are almost always at that church, and her birthday was that weekend, so none of this was weird to me.

- Cover lies. You have to be prepared to answer questions, right? Ryan's family is not known for being early, so when we got to the church a half hour before the party and the lot was full of cars, THAT was weird to me. I asked, and Ryan said there was a church conference. Well, that denomination does love its Saturday conferences, so that was believable to me!

- Tell people to arrive early. In the invitation that went out to the guests, he told them to get there around two and I would arrive by 2:30. Indeed, there were no stragglers walking in when we got there!

And it worked!

The party itself was like a giant open house. People just mingled, talked, ate, hopefully had fun, and posed for lots of pictures with me! There was no formal entertainment or anything. Just a chance for people to hang out and enjoy!

So there you go! How to pull off a really fun surprise party for a nosy grown up (with 100 guests)!