Surprise parties?

Hi RBH ?

I sprung a surprise party for Mr P but it wasn't at home, it was in a hotel. I'd arranged for all his family to travel down from up North and told Mr P that we were going for a meal in that hotel with my Mum. To make it more convincing, we picked her up at home then drove to the hotel. His family and the rest of mine were all sitting in the courtyard when we arrived, and it was lovely seeing his face not knowing a thing about it!

The only person missing was his eldest daughter as she was in NZ at the time, which was a shame, but we had a fabulous evening. Sit down dinner complete with cake washed down with copious amounts of wine.

That could be one way of not having to do the work yourself and ensure secrecy?

We did similar for my Mum's 50th so I had thought about it. One of the things I thought would be nice about the party is that H could see lots more people than I could get to a dinner iyswim. His close friends he barely sees at the moment as they all live in London but we don't. Lots of his family he barely sees (some that isn't a bad thing?) but would like to see more of. When I did a provisional guest list, I was at about 60 people (including partners etc) and I just don't think we could have that many at a dinner and make it work iyswim. Plus if we had a dinner I would struggle to pick somewhere that everyone would eat at as some of them (his mother in particular) are SUCH fussy eaters. I don't really care if they don't eat buffet food but if I pick a restaurant and then they sit there picking at food or not eating, it makes life difficult.

My Dad organised a surprise 50th birthday party for my mum. He arranged for me, Mr Caterpillar, my brother and his OH (at the time) to come back from university for the weekend, and made sure we would arrive when she was out. Then the next day, he arranged for us all to go out for a mmeal, but for a surprise, he arranged for mum's best friends and my Grandma to come with us as well - they met us at the restaurant. It all worked quite well - don't think she suspected anything!

Mr Caterpillar's cousins arranged a surprise 40th wedding anniversary party for their parents last year - they pretended to be taking them out for a meal but they had actually hired a room at a hotel and arranged for relatives and friends to come along. When they walked into the room we all jumped out with party poppers! Again, don't think they were too suspicious - and they loved it!

Hope that it goes well, if you manage to organise anything!

I organised a suprise party for my husband a few years back. I booked a big table in a local restaurant, invited everyone and they all paid for their own meals so a little different from what you are suggesting. However, for my own party earlier this year I booked a room in our local pub for which they only wanted a £50 deposit. I had a DJ too which cost me £350 and didn't do any food. The pub did offer to provide food for me which could be an option for you. No idea how much it might cost though as I didn't want it so didn't ask.

Could you rope in some family or friends to do the buffet for you, obviously, you'd pay for the food but could they prepare it all for you and get it to the venue on the day? Equally, perhaps if you bought any decorations (I didn't bother for my party) could some of his friends or family put it all up for you so you don't have to take G along or explain your why you're out all day on his Birthday? Or, you could tell him you're going shopping for a day, on your own, and he'll have to look after G while you're out. Then you could get everything done while he's at home with the baby.

Only you will know if your husband will love this or find it cringeworthy.

Hog roasts are brilliant! The place I work at charges them out at around £30 per head but I should think you could get someone to supply one for about £10 per head if you shopped around. (Also depends on what area of the country you're in.)

His birthday is November so bit worried about the weather with something like a hog roast.

I can hire our local hall but I am pretty sure you can do hog roasts/bbqs there because there is limited outside space.

Ooh, oooh, just thought of a brilliant cover story... tell MR RBH that you're cooking him a lovely dinner for his Birthday. Get a baby-sitter all lined up, ready to come when called. Then, burn it/under cook it on purpose, throw a girly strop about how you've ruined his birthday and insist on taking him out for a lovely dinner to make up. Call the baby sitter, put Mr RBH in the car/taxi and take him to the party venue were all the guests are ready to jump out and suprise him!

Result ?

Thanks. I think my H would love a party, he is quite sociable and loved the evening reception part of our wedding when he just milled around chatting to people and having a few drinks.

I think I would have to get some help from friends and family. I know a few would be more than happy to help. I had planned in my head that I would do the party on a Saturday and take the Friday off work without telling H so I could spend that time buying food / preparing what I could etc. I have Costco membership so can get things from there.

Current costings are:

Disco - £300

Hall hire - £100 ish (Mum is checking this)

Bar hire - £85

So then just need to price up the food.

I would dearly love for it to be a surprise, but am wondering if it is better to ask him if he wants it?

We've done 2 over the last few years - one for mums 60th and then one for my sisters 40th a few weeks back and I'll no doubt be doing one for H's 30th next year...

To be honest, they have all been fairly small scale, mostly because the idea of a surprise party were both mum and my sisters idea of hell with both saying in the lead up they would never speak to us again if he threw one ? so not sure I'll be that much help but here goes...

Both were held at my mums house - she has a big kitchen and living room so plenty of space, although she is fanatical in regards to housework etc. so we had nightmares for weeks beforehand in regards to spilt drinks etc. We decided against hiring anywhere as the cost would have been ridiculous - it would have been a fancy bar at Canary Wharf as the local community halls near her aren't available to hire and neither of them are pub people, we also figured it was easier to keep it a secret if it was at home. For mums we ordered all of the food from M&S and Waitrose, for my sister most of the food was homemade - next time I'll stick with M&S and Waitrose, much less stress, and TBH no more expensive. We ordered a cake for mum, I made my sisters cake - homemade was much nicer but again much more stressful! For all the decorations etc. we used www.partyrama.co.uk for mums and spent about £100 on balloons, numbered things that we hung all around the edges of the room, banners etc. However, I managed to find everything for my sisters party on ebay, brand new, for a fraction of the price!

In terms of logistics, we had my SIL take mum shopping all day to get her out of the way and with my sister I took her to have a much needed haircut as a birthday present with my hairdresser - it meant starting parties at 6pm which was a little bit early but then both went on until the early hours, it just meant things seemed 'normal' to them, with them being held at home neither one suspected anything as they were just coming home. One thing I would do next time is maybe have the party a week before or a week after the actual birthday, especially as in our family it's kind of becoming 'expected'. Could you arrange for your H to take G out for the day or for someone to need his help with DIY etc?Although to be honest, if you ordered all of the food from M&S and held it fairly close to home you could get away with using a cut & colour as an excuse to get you out of the way for a few hours or something along those lines.

As I said, both mum and my sister were hellbent on "I'll kill anyone who throws a surprise party" and they meant it, but both absolutely loved it - in terms of cost I think we spent maybe £700 on mums and £500 on my sisters (although no venue costs, we already had most of the alcohol and both were small - about 40 or so people) and I'm budgeting about £1,000 for H's as it'll be a little bigger.

Good luck!

I had a hog roast at my wedding and that was outdoors in October and it was fine!

I love the HR idea, so much less hassle than a sit down meal for sure.

Could you see about getting a room in a pub for gratis and putting a few hundred quid behind the bar? So many places give you the room for free if you put down an agreed tab.

I would also recommend ensuring that, particularly as you have a young child, getting some of his nearest and dearest involved in the secret. That way they can head off other party plans and help you with the organising. Good luck!

Funnily enough I had worked out my cover story!

Plan was to get my Mum over to babysit. Blindfold Mr RBH and get him in the car telling him where we are going to dinner is a surprise. Once we are gone the real babysitter can turn up so Mum can get ready and get to party. I drive Mr RBH around for half an hour to get him nice and confused then drive him back to the village hall!

No lol, don't tell him! He'll love it if he's sociable.

Thank you Lili - that is hugely helpful. Am particularly interested to hear that the food wasn't particularly cheaper doing it yourself. I had been browsing on M & S and Waitrose sites just now.

Actually you have reminded me there is a local pub that has a room that I should check out as well. Thanks.

Hmmm, maybe a hog roast could work then and I know H would love that!

Oh he is, far more sociable than I am <grumpy git icon>?

Although cost is a factor, the M&S / Waitrose food was just so much easier - everything came on platters so it was literally a case of open a box and put on a table whereas with the homemade food a couple of us spent hours the night before and hours on the day itself chopping, baking, stressing - I spent hours making the cake and ended up having to have my hair washed and dried at the hairdressers as I ran out of time to have a shower ?. I think we found Waitrose better in terms of choice and cost for things like meat platters and sandwiches etc. with M&S better for the picky bits, we stuck to a totally cold buffet which was also easier than having to heat things.

A hog roast would be fab, I know when we were looking for our wedding there were a few companies / local butchers who would come to you and run one at home, either turning up and setting everything up leaving you to help yourself or with a fully managed service.

I've been to parties with M&S food and it was lovely. All set out for you too.

I've been to and organised quite a few surprise parties over the last few years. People will always be suspicious if it comes up to a big birthday and there are no arrangements to see their friends or family. So you need to arrange a fake something for the Sunday, or the weekend after so he thinks he's going to see some people for his birthday. Could your IL's pretend to be away the weekend of his birthday? hence need to do something the weekend after, or maybe IL's isn't a good one as they may be unlikely to book something on their son's 30th. Perhaps some close friends?

A friend is having a surpise party for her husband's 30th in August and she has booked a hog roast which has cost £300 and will feed 125-150 apparently. We're going to pick up anything we can at Costco and I'll probably end up cooking the bits and bobs which will need to be cooked for her which gets around all the food. I'm not sure how she's going to get around the large gazeebo/marquee in the garden yet though. ?

I'm such a control freak / narcissist that I've already booked the room for my own 30th party in December ?

Just a thought; it might be worth seeing if which ever venue you choose has a PA / speaker system. The room I'm having does, and it means that you can just do a playlist on an ipod and plug it in to the speakers, so we don't need to hire a dj. I've been to a few parties like that and it works well as you can decide exactly what music you want.

Would absolutely second the other suggestions about getting family involved in the planning / food production. If you decided not to go with M&S or whatever then splitting the jobs between family will make it much easier. And definitely do it as a surprise, I'd be over the moon if someone did that for me!