You will have to ask yourself several questions, such as the time of year during which you want to celebrate this anniversary? Indeed if it is in winter you will have to rent a room, while in summer you can organize the party in the open air.
You will also have to ask yourself how many guests will be invited because you will not have the same possibilities depending on whether there are people or a lot of people. Will the guests be able to stay and sleep? This is just a snippet of all the questions to ask yourself when planning a magical surprise birthday party, so follow the steps below and get started.
1. Choose a date
Before thinking about everything else, you have to find the date on which the surprise birthday will take place. It may sound easy like this, but there are things you need to be careful about. Here are some tips that you will find very useful.
When to notify the guests?
Don’t warn too early or too late! The more advance notice you give, the more likely it is that someone will mess up. But so that everyone can come and that no one organizes a party on the same date, try to warn a month in advance.
What to do in the evening?
Take into account the constraints of the one for whom you are organizing this beautiful birthday: maybe he works on Saturdays? In this case, organize the party on Saturday evening. What if that loved one is a student who works Saturdays and Sundays? You can ask one of his colleagues to warn the bosses (if you do it in advance, they will find a solution and it will be a second surprise: a day off).
If you are organizing a surprise birthday party for a friend, do not hesitate to ask their loved ones for more information on their calendar. And conversely, if you are a member of the family, do not hesitate to get information from his friends. It would be silly to organize his birthday on the weekend when the guest of honor had planned a weekend by the sea.
Be sure the guest of honor will be present
Worried that the guest will decide to organize his birthday before he even discovers the surprise, or that he plans something else on that date? To be calm, tell him you invite him to eat at your place on the day of the evening. That way, he won’t be planning any other plans. And if he starts telling you he wants to throw a birthday party, how do we do it? You will have to tell all the guests to play around and make them believe that you will be present. But the date of the surprise birthday will have to be before the date on which he intends to organize his party.
2. Find a suitable place for a surprise party
Organize an indoor birthday party
It is possible to have a surprise evening at home, with friends or with a member of his family. But since not everyone has a large house, you can hire a room that will accommodate all the guests. It is easy to book party rooms with town halls; the prices are generally attractive for residents. The advantage of the room is that it has everything you need to party, namely a bar, a stage, and a dance floor. For the price, it depends on the region; it takes $100 for 50m², but it can cost much more.
If you are a smaller committee, you can privatize a restaurant or book a lodge, the advantages are numerous for the restaurant; you do not need to serve or prepare food for the lodge, this allows all guests to sleep there and be able to organize an activity the next day. The price of renting a cottage for a whole weekend obviously depends on the season, the location, and the number of beds and services available, prices start from $500 up to $2,000. You can get more information on the group gîte site or on the gîte de France site.
Organize an outdoor birthday party
If you want to organize your surprise evening outside during the summer holidays, you can also survey your friends who have a large lot, but it is also possible to book landscaped grounds with a barbecue and picnic table and the best of the best: to privatize a beach. If you want to do it on a public beach, you will have to obey different rules, including the prohibition of consuming alcohol in a public place and lighting a campfire. The organization in terms of music and lighting is also complicated.
3. The guest list
You have to choose the guests according to the preferences of the person, if it is a person who prefers small groups to large gatherings, then you will have to invite friends and close family. Conversely, it is also possible to invite all friends but also colleagues and family in general. If unfortunately, in his family or his friends, some people do not get along, it is then necessary either to invite a single person or to bring together the people concerned in order to lecture them on possible bad behavior that could spoil the evening and all efforts to organize it. The size of the room is also a factor to take into account, indeed if you have rented a large room, it will then be necessary to make it profitable with a large number of guests.
They will be all gathered to spend a wonderful evening in the company of a person important to them, they will just have to prepare themselves to wish him a happy birthday!
Serenading a Mexican Pop Star
4. Choose a theme for the evening
It is always nice to choose a theme for a surprise party. This theme must obviously be in keeping with the passions of the surprise guest. Once this theme has been chosen, it will be easier to choose the elements of decoration and restoration. A theme also allows everyone to present to discuss and reach out more easily. Here are some examples according to known passions:
- Pirate theme: everyone comes to dress up, we decorate with treasure maps and fishing nets.
- Hippie theme: for someone fan of the peace and love years, we make a colorful decoration and we ask everyone to come with big fun glasses or flashy shirts.
- Color theme: easier for decoration and dress code, choose the favorite color of the guest of honor.
5. Organization of the evening
Don’t think you can do it all on your own. It is always nice to get help before and after the party. It is for this reason, that one should not hesitate to ask his friends and to distribute the tasks well. You can do this by making a list of things to do before and during the event. Here’s a list to help you:
- The person is responsible for looking after the guest during the preparation of the evening: …
- The person or persons who prepare the place of reception: …
- Whoever takes care of taking souvenir photos: …
- The guest who takes care of the music: …
- Those who take care of guiding the guests for a successful surprise: …
6. Gifts
A guest at the center of attention
Remember, this is the guest of honor’s night. Even if you are the one who spent all your energy in organizing this event, it will be the one who will be in the spotlight. And to make them understand that it is their evening, hang pictures of them as a child and with their relatives on the walls. If you have skills, you can create a video montage with crazy videos of them as a baby, pictures of their entourage, and videos of their loved ones messaging them. You can project the film on a wall and just have to watch their eyes sparkle.
Choice of gift
If you have some energy left, you can organize a joint prize pool, so that everyone slips a ticket (or makes a transfer if you are doing a prize pool on the internet). But what to do with all this money? Well, you can let the guest of honor use it however they see fit. But as a gift it’s always more fun to discover, you can buy them a nice gift or offer a part of the money and use the rest to buy lots of funny gifts that you will slip into a large box (shot glass, condoms, soft toy…). Once you’ve found the perfect gift(s), don’t forget to ask all participants to sign and if possible to leave a nice note on the birthday card.
When to offer the package?
The ideal time to give the gifts is a third of the evening, just before the desserts, to gather all the guests around the surprise guest. And if it’s a dance party, gift time will be a great excuse to bring everyone together on the dancefloor. You just have to rely on the mariachi band to start the music that will make everyone dance once the packages are unwrapped.
- During the day, offer gifts 2 hours after guests have arrived. This way you give the guest of honor time to recover from their feelings and all the guests to make themselves comfortable. Do not wait for the first guests to leave to give the gifts.
- In the evening, offer the packages before midnight. If you wait too long, you risk ending the evening when everyone is having a blast dancing.
7. What do we eat?
Food and drinks will set the direction for your evening. You should plan a buffet that will be appreciated by most people. Depending on your guests, you can choose a classic meal at the table or simply make dinner. The second option will certainly be much more affordable in terms of price and organization.
Then if you have the time, you can always make a large bowl of punch or sangria to bring together the largest world around this aperitif.
Of course, don’t forget the younger ones because children don’t eat the same thing as adults (especially when it comes to a birthday party), so if there are young children don’t forget to think about them (and if you have in mind to organize 5 years, we have planned a tutorial for you).
8. Keep the secret
The most exciting thing about organizing a surprise party, of course, is keeping it a secret for as long as possible. You have to be gifted in the art of handling subterfuge. First of all, you must clearly specify and insist in the invitations that it is a SURPRISE party and you must not mention the name of the guest specifically. Then you have to plan a fictitious evening with the surprise guest to be sure that the latter is available in due time. It should also be made clear to people who are not invited and who may be in contact with the person to keep it a secret. Don’t forget to park your cars far from the meeting place so as not to spoil the surprise for a few seconds.
If the birthday surprise is for your spouse and you share your computer, pay attention to your internet searches or social media conversations. It is also possible to create an email address especially for the event to communicate with the guests. Finally, you can use social networks to find friends and family. Even if you’ve planned an awesome Unicorn-themed party, keep it a secret because the surprise will only be all the more beautiful!
9. Choice of entertainment
The choice of music is essential, it will enhance the evening. As we saw earlier, you can hire a DJ or even better, a mariachi band to play live music. You can also find someone likely to do it among your guests, the children will always be very motivated at the idea of being able to animate a party, free to you to trust them or not. You can create a playlist with your music or on Spotify, you have to think about putting all the styles in order to please everyone. If you are feeling the soul of a songwriter, you can write a song for your friend, taking care of printing the lyrics for the guests.
Then, during the evening, you can set up games that do not require any preparation beforehand such as musical chairs or bring back an object as quickly as possible. If you were still wondering why it is important to celebrate your birthday, after your games you will not ask yourself this question again!
10. How to attract the person to the party without suspecting anything?
In order not to meet the guest on the road, ask the guests to come 30 minutes in advance, or even more, for those who are used to being late. It is also necessary to find a person to occupy it all day long as far as possible from the preparations. You can surprise the guest with confetti when they arrive or more simply by staying in the dark and turning on the light. For young adults (for example to celebrate the 18th birthday), you can ask her girlfriends to sing a song when everyone is in the dark when the guest enters.
That’s it, it’s the big day, after months of stress and preparation, the secret has been kept warm. The room is beautifully decorated, the champagne is chilled, the petits fours are ready to be devoured, the guests are impatient.
The guest returns, amazed, he had seen nothing coming, you just have to let the magic work.
