Have you ever wondered how to plan a
surprise party for your husband?
I have always... attempted to make people around me feel special and I try doing it in as many ways possible, but, planning a surprise has never been easy. It needs careful planning at every step, so as not to spoil the surprise. Trust me! You won’t be able to relax very much, with this type of party, especially when it’s for your spouse. But if you’re always up for an adventure (like me), you’ll definitely enjoy the process – as you experience the immense elation that comes from an artfully and, hopefully, successfully executed plan.
Even though my mind kept dreaming – could I really pull it off? I decided to not over think and give it a shot. There is no doubt that my husband was suspicious. I tried to fend off his questions - what time are you planning to be back home? Where are we going for the dinner tonight? Me wanting him to buy groceries on the way back home, even when we were going out for dinner, as per the fake plan ;-) (Did I mention I'm a terrible liar?) But, even though it was challenging and wearing, the surprise at the end was totally worth it.
Later, most of my friends and colleagues kept asking me how I managed to plan all this on a weekday without missing office, so I thought of sharing a cheat sheet with y’all. ;)
For a person who’s hosting a party, there are tons of things that need to be arranged before the party begins, especially if you want to make sure that everybody will remember the party for how awesome it was. It does sound easy but besides the usual things that you have to take care of, such as the food and drinks, (that I prepared on the day of the party) there are a lot of other things that you should keep in mind. For me it was a four-step process that included:
Invitations: This is where a surprise party can get tricky. How to invite? How many people? You don’t want to upset anyone but at the same time you can’t have too many people over. The smaller your party, the less likely someone will blab the surprise in advance. I decided to keep the guest list small and the invitation process pretty simple. I decided to invite friends and cousins who worked/ lived in and around Gurgaon so that they all turn up on time. But I made sure to tell everyone on the invitation that the event is a surprise party. I created a WhatsApp group and invited everyone through an e-invite, but that worked for me because Akshat was travelling for work and he couldn't check my phone, otherwise he loves to play games on my phone all the time. When he came back home on 10th and saw a password on my phone he was a bit suspicious but then I convinced him by saying that you always drain my battery so I’ve decided to put a password so you can’t play games anymore. ;-)
Alternately, you can send out a text to invite people or make phone calls. I like to send out invitations so I designed an e-invitation on a ppt but you can always use apps/ websites like Canva, Smilebox etc for easy and pretty design options.
Here’s the invitation that I sent out:
I have always... attempted to make people around me feel special and I try doing it in as many ways possible, but, planning a surprise has never been easy. It needs careful planning at every step, so as not to spoil the surprise. Trust me! You won’t be able to relax very much, with this type of party, especially when it’s for your spouse. But if you’re always up for an adventure (like me), you’ll definitely enjoy the process – as you experience the immense elation that comes from an artfully and, hopefully, successfully executed plan.
Even though my mind kept dreaming – could I really pull it off? I decided to not over think and give it a shot. There is no doubt that my husband was suspicious. I tried to fend off his questions - what time are you planning to be back home? Where are we going for the dinner tonight? Me wanting him to buy groceries on the way back home, even when we were going out for dinner, as per the fake plan ;-) (Did I mention I'm a terrible liar?) But, even though it was challenging and wearing, the surprise at the end was totally worth it.
Later, most of my friends and colleagues kept asking me how I managed to plan all this on a weekday without missing office, so I thought of sharing a cheat sheet with y’all. ;)
For a person who’s hosting a party, there are tons of things that need to be arranged before the party begins, especially if you want to make sure that everybody will remember the party for how awesome it was. It does sound easy but besides the usual things that you have to take care of, such as the food and drinks, (that I prepared on the day of the party) there are a lot of other things that you should keep in mind. For me it was a four-step process that included:
• Sending out invitations and making sure
everybody reaches on time
• Decorating the house
• Ordering an awesome cake that everyone loves
and remembers
• Food and Drinks – The menu that everyone
loves
Invitations: This is where a surprise party can get tricky. How to invite? How many people? You don’t want to upset anyone but at the same time you can’t have too many people over. The smaller your party, the less likely someone will blab the surprise in advance. I decided to keep the guest list small and the invitation process pretty simple. I decided to invite friends and cousins who worked/ lived in and around Gurgaon so that they all turn up on time. But I made sure to tell everyone on the invitation that the event is a surprise party. I created a WhatsApp group and invited everyone through an e-invite, but that worked for me because Akshat was travelling for work and he couldn't check my phone, otherwise he loves to play games on my phone all the time. When he came back home on 10th and saw a password on my phone he was a bit suspicious but then I convinced him by saying that you always drain my battery so I’ve decided to put a password so you can’t play games anymore. ;-)
Alternately, you can send out a text to invite people or make phone calls. I like to send out invitations so I designed an e-invitation on a ppt but you can always use apps/ websites like Canva, Smilebox etc for easy and pretty design options.
Here’s the invitation that I sent out:
Balloon Surprise:
Decorations can create an atmosphere that will break or your
make your party. Now, depending on the theme of your party, there are lots of different things that you can consider
as decorations, but one thing is for certain. Balloons!
So I decided to hire a balloon decoration service since I
wanted to fill my entire living room with balloons and have photos hanging from
balloons to create a chandelier over a table. You can contact Cherishx.com to
replicate this for your party too.
Here’s how the décor looked:
Cake:
I personally feel that the importance of cake on a birthday should never be overlooked.
Whether the birthday is to
celebrate turning three or turning thirty three, there needs to be the ritual
of cake, and for Akshat’s
birthday I wanted to organise a cake that is special and unforgettable.
I decided to arrange a cake in the shape of a Bira Can seeing
that Akshat is a Bira Fan. Thanks to the awesome baker that I have next door,
this became an easy task on my list. Shruti (my cousin) and I decided to put
all the other Bira cans around the cake. It was pretty funny that most of the
guests did not recognize the cake and misunderstood it to be a large pack of
Bira.
Here are some pictures of the cake:
In case you want to contact her for the cake you can visit
her FB page: Cake in the Box (Jaya Agrawal). She can do a cake in any shape and
flavour; she’s one of the best in town.
Food and Drinks:
Being a foodie myself I always make
sure the food menu is something that everybody enjoys. Since most of my friends
are chicken lovers I made sure there were enough chicken options on the menu. I
love cooking so I decided to prepare everything myself, besides, even Akshat
enjoys home cooked food over restaurant food. Accordingly, I decided to come
home early on 11th just to cook his favourite meals. However, you can
definitely order food from Swiggy, Zomato, Foodpanda etc. Not to forget, the
drink of the day was, of course, Bira but I made sure there were scotch and
other cocktails that everybody enjoys. I checked with each guest their drink
preference in advance so that it could be arranged in time.
One piece of advice, you must prepare a music playlist in advance.
You don’t want everyone going up and putting their phones in to play the next
track. J
Thank you to everyone who made Akshat’s
33rd birthday so memorable. So all you who really want to know the secret to
planning a truly awesome surprise party: - your willingness, coupled with sheer
determination and of course wonderful friends who won’t ditch you and will turn
up even on a weekday. J
I’m sure if you do this your husband
will really appreciate your effort and will never forget the experience. All
the best! ;-)
