Organising a successful surprise birthday party

Organ­is­ing a sur­prise birth­day par­ty is a full-fledged event and requires much prepa­ra­tion before­hand. Man­ag­ing the logis­tics and prepar­ing a par­ty while main­tain­ing the wow fac­tor requires con­sid­er­able effort and con­sid­er­a­tion of many ele­ments.

Whether it’s a sur­prise birth­day par­ty for your part­ner or a friend, here’s an overview of the steps you need to take to make your event a suc­cess:

1. Choose the date and time

The first step in organ­is­ing a sur­prise birth­day par­ty is to set a date and time.

The avail­abil­i­ty of the hon­oree is, of course, the most impor­tant fac­tor in choos­ing the right moment. Dis­creet­ly check their sched­ule and avail­abil­i­ty before­hand so that you can set a date with peace of mind. Also, ensure your friend or part­ner is busy and dis­tract­ed in the hours lead­ing up to the sur­prise so they don’t get sus­pi­cious!

2. Find the right venue

This is one of the most com­pli­cat­ed tasks: choos­ing the right place with­out get­ting caught!

While the per­son­’s home is often a good option, you can also book an entire bar or restau­rant (or room) for your par­ty, mak­ing them think you’re going there for din­ner, just the two of you.

Think about the hon­oree’s favourite places to be con­sis­tent and dis­creet. Is their favourite restau­rant open? Do you pre­fer indoors or out­doors? Do you have time to organ­ise the sur­prise birth­day par­ty at your place or theirs? If you decide to rent a venue, you will obvi­ous­ly have less time to deal with the prepa­ra­tion of the birth­day par­ty itself (dec­o­ra­tion, activ­i­ties…).

Final­ly, ensure that your guests can arrive eas­i­ly and dis­creet­ly and are there before the birth­day boy or girl arrives to cre­ate a sur­prise effect.

3. Set a budget

To bet­ter plan the sur­prise birth­day par­ty, set a bud­get, espe­cial­ly if you want to book a restau­rant or oth­er venue. This will allow you to keep in mind what kind of venue you can afford, how much mon­ey you will have left for the gift, food and drink, etc.

4. Make a guest list

Select­ing guests is no easy task when organ­is­ing a sur­prise birth­day par­ty. Work col­leagues? Close friends only? Fam­i­ly? You will also need to deter­mine how many peo­ple will be invit­ed: this will help you decide on the venue.

Once the list has been defined, the invi­ta­tions should be sent dis­creet­ly! Cre­ate a group on a social net­work (ide­al­ly What­sapp) with­out includ­ing the birth­day per­son, and use this group to send all rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion (date, time, pos­si­ble loca­tion…). Don’t for­get to ask for a quick response so you can organ­ise your­self as well as pos­si­ble.

5. Find a theme

For a more orig­i­nal par­ty, choose a theme your friend or part­ner likes: sports, movies, colours, eras, etc. Plan the whole par­ty around the cho­sen theme, from dec­o­ra­tions to music and food. List pos­si­ble cos­tumes to wear and where to rent or buy them. You can even cre­ate a song, depend­ing on the theme you choose.

6. Choose your gift

As the norm for birth­days is to give a gift, be cre­ative when it comes to find­ing some­thing wor­thy of a sur­prise birth­day. Whether it is a gift per per­son or a group gift, estab­lish in advance the bud­get and the type of gift you want to give.

Short of ideas? Here is a non-exhaus­tive list of per­fect gifts for a sur­prise birth­day:

• An orig­i­nal activ­i­ty (para­chute jump­ing, rid­ing a vin­tage car, escape room with friends…).
• Mon­ey: Yes, giv­ing mon­ey so the per­son can buy the gift they want is pos­si­ble, but less per­son­al.
• Kitchen­ware
• Fur­ni­ture for their flat or house
• Cook­ing or oenol­o­gy class­es
• A trip for two
• Tick­ets for a spe­cif­ic event (con­certs, foot­ball match­es, oth­er sport­ing events, fairs, etc.).
• A smart­phone, PC, tablet or any oth­er tech­no­log­i­cal equip­ment
• Etc.

Be orig­i­nal and leave your mark with a gift they will love and remem­ber! You can also cre­ate a scene at the moment of the gift-giv­ing (prefer­ably before the cake) by ask­ing the restau­rant to turn off the lights and play music specif­i­cal­ly for this pur­pose.

7. Prepare the cake, food and drink.

A birth­day with­out cake can’t be called a birth­day!

Con­sid­er­ing the guest of honour’s tastes, book a good cake at a local bak­ery. Plan the birth­day meal as well. It can include a buf­fet or a cater­ing ser­vice and alco­holic and non-alco­holic drinks (cock­tails, cham­pagne, wine…).

Con­sid­er guests’ dietary restric­tions and pref­er­ences, for exam­ple, by offer­ing veg­e­tar­i­an or veg­an options.

8. Create an online kitty

To be as dis­creet as pos­si­ble, cre­ate an online kit­ty to cov­er all the expens­es relat­ed to the sur­prise birth­day par­ty (venue, food…) and the gift. You can use online tools that are easy to share and use to make your work eas­i­er. Ide­al­ly, guests should be able to choose how much to put in the kit­ty, which can vary depend­ing on their rela­tion­ship with the birth­day boy or girl.

Weezevent helps you to eas­i­ly organ­ise a sur­prise birth­day par­ty for your part­ner or a friend. Dis­cov­er our solu­tions for col­lect­ing dona­tions online!

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