Help me figure out how to make my wife's 40th birthday party be a unique & special/memorable event for both her & our guests...

August 15, 2009 3:47 PM

Throughing my wife a 40th birthday party... at a bar (in the Tampa Bay area), with our favorite band... we'll have an area for the catered food i'm bringing... but I need some other suggestions on how to make this event particularly special and unique, not only for the 50 or so guests, but also my wife.

We're good friends with the band, & they will bring her on stage throughout the evening to help sing & dance and such...
I wanna make this a unique 40th b-day party.... now, we're going to have food from 3-4 restaurants, etc. I'll arrange some kind of transportation for anyone who needs it throughout the evening (don't want anyone drinking & driving of course). The party starts at around 8 ish... & goes until the place closes...around 1am ish.
Now, after that we may see our other buddy play at a different bar... i could also have, whoever is left standing, come with us to Hard Rock Casino ...

But what i'm really looking for is suggestions on how to make this party stand out & be different ... preferable at the bar... I thought about having a tattoo artist on hand... as one thought. I didn't know if it was practical to give away any party favors.... I could buy some cd's and/or shirts from the band & give them to some people... IDK....

Any others thoughts???

posted by foodybat to sports, hobbies, & recreation (6 comments total)

Really you can do as much or as little with this as you want. You can sort of throw the doors open and let everyone roll on in and have a great night, or you can plan it down to the last detail.

If you want to do favours, I would suggest something personal to the occassion, not generic band CDs. One thing you can do that's fun is hire a photobooth and give every guest a mini-frame fridge magnet to to put their photo in. If you can replace the standard "person you've never seen" image in each frame with a "Thank you for coming to Maggies's 40th!" insert instead, that is what makes it work because it's personalised.

If you want to do something else you could do a "Maggie's 40th!" mix CD with a custom cover and a fold out insert with photos of her through her life with her friends or whatever.

At the bar, you can ask them to design a custom cocktail named after your wife for the night, or do a local beer or wine with custom lables or whatever.

My point really is that if you're planning to add more stuff to the mix, the "theme" should really be... your wife!
posted by DarlingBri at 4:21 PM on August 15

This isn't a party favor, it's just an idea I thought was sweet... Take a photo of your wedding cake to a specialty cake shop, and have them make a miniature one. Your wife might just think it's very sweet too.
posted by sporaticgenius at 5:01 PM on August 15

Seconding a signature cocktail for the evening. It would be very memorable. Maybe have a scrapbook of some sort sort of toasting all your wife's years? (If she's the sentimental sort).

Is there any sort of theme going at all aside from "Mrs. Foodybat's 40th"?
posted by cmgonzalez at 6:55 PM on August 15

A projector flashing pictures of good times over the years. And the funnier the better. You could even do funny captions. This would be fun for guests too, especially if you have a lot of pics with friends and family who will be at the party with lots of stories to go with the pictures.
posted by gt2 at 9:02 PM on August 15

i thought of doing some kind of power point presentation.....but it's very much a bar atmosphere... not a huge place... so i'll probably just copy some photos & stick them on a poster board.... but any formal projection / presentation just wouldn't be right for this kind of atmostphere....

We have no real 'theme' to this event.

i like the idea of the signature drink.....


Any other ideas out there???
posted by foodybat at 6:52 AM on August 16

Perhaps something special or unique based on each decade of her life?
0-10; something family based - a cherished stuffed toy?
10-20; something from high school
20-30 Something from your (joint) past)
30-40 Something from your recent past.
posted by filmgeek at 1:59 PM on August 16