Besides my wedding (which I had A LOT of help with) I threw my first real party last week for my husband’s 30th birthday. I was stressed out for about three weeks from party conception to the actual surprise, but in the end it was all worth it, and we have memories with our friends and family that will last forever!
My main goal with the party decorations was to make everything tailored to Shea and his personality. The one thing I knew I had to have was personalized coke bottles. Shea LOVES coke…like a little too much, but I decided since it was his birthday to feature one of his most favorite things in life.
The personalized bottles read “Share a Coke with…Shea, The 30 Year Old and #SheasTurnt30th”. I love good a hashtag, and I knew I wanted to have a special one for the party.
I bought glass picture frames from Hobby Lobby (all at 50% off!), and put childhood pictures of Shea in them to pair with the coke bottles, tea lights and green balloons for each table decoration.
I also used the hashtag on our custom koozies. Koozies are a pretty standard favor in the south for weddings, and we used Rook Design Company for our wedding koozies. Allison did such a great job on those that I knew exactly who to go to for these birthday koozies! I sent her a picture of Shea and she did a custom illustration that could not have come out more perfect! I literally told her to use his face, a shamrock and the text, and she came up with a design that I did not change at all.
Custom Koozies from Rook Design Company
Shea’s birthday is St. Patrick’s Day, but to keep the surprise, I threw the party a few days early. I stuck to a St. Patty’s day theme with green balloons and garland and a shamrock cake from the tastiest bakery in town – Ambrosia Bakery.
Shamrock cake from Ambrosia Bakery in Baton Rouge, La.
We also dressed up the cake table with some of Shea’s favorite things – sour patch kids, coke bottles and LSU Football. I am not a fan of a typical guest book where people sign their name and keep it movin. At our wedding, we had everyone paste picture strips from the photo booth into an album I had made and sign their name and put a message there. For this party, I had all of our guests sign an LSU football. I thought this would be a unique way to have a guestbook, and Shea can put it somewhere in his office.
The biggest hit of the night was my mini Polaroid camera. I had decided to purchase it on a whim thinking we could do something with the pictures after the party, and while I still don’t have an idea on what to do with the pictures, we have A LOT of pictures to work with! That paired with the 30th birthday photo props made for a makeshift photo booth that turned out a lot of quality pictures throughout the weekend!
My sister-in-law also bought one for the occasion too, so we had our bases covered when it came to pictures. By the end of the weekend we realized that none of us had iPhone photos from the party or the St. Patty’s Day parade because we only used the polaroid camera.
We had so much fun and are so thankful for all of our friends and family that traveled to be there for the party. I rented out a private room and part of the patio at The Rum House in Baton Rouge, and the venue could not have been any better. The food was perfect, the weather held up and we celebrated all night!
There is no way I could have pulled all of this off if I didn’t have help from our friends, family, and of course, Amazon Prime! It is definitely a night we will never forget, and now I am looking forward to my 30th birthday next year! Let’s see what Shea can pull together for that!
