I think it’s safe to say that most men are simple creatures. At least my husband is. Especially when it comes to his birthday. He doesn’t want much. He doesn’t want to make it a big thing.
Me though? I think any birthday is a day to be celebrated, but especially a decade birthday. Bonus points for pulling off a surprise party.
Below you will find a few easy and affordable things you can do that cross off “decorations” and make it personable, but also keeps it low-key.
Cupcakes –
I decided to go with cupcakes instead of cake for easy serving. No cutting, no singing, no blowing out candles. Plus, I wanted to do my husband’s face with a party hat on picks for each cupcake.
I wanted to go with the color theme of black and gold since my husband is a huge Iowa Hawkeyes fan. I ordered the cupcakes from our local grocery store and had them be chocolate with black frosting and gold sprinkles.
Honestly, my husband usually prefers white cake instead of chocolate, but I chose fitting the theme over his needs. HA!
Speaking of his face with a party hat on a pick… I made those in PowerPoint. I found a good forward facing picture of my husband and cropped his face as much as I could.
Also in PowerPoint, I created the “party hat.” I inserted the triangle shape and sized it to fit the size of his face I would be using. Then I filled the triangle “black.” Then I inserted a circle shape and shrunk it small enough to fit at the top of the “party hat” and filled it yellow. I added a text box to put “30 af” in the party hat (af being the popular slang during that year). I made that text color yellow as well.
I printed his face wearing this party hat and laminated then cut them all out. A little work involved but zero cost to me.
I taped them to the back of these kabob sticks to stick in each cupcake.
Centerpieces –
I placed a lace paper doily (any kind would work) throughout the centers of the tables. These tables were long so it took about 3 per table and I had two tables booked.
I took a glass mug and filled it with items to make it look like beer. This included brown crinkle-cut paper shred that you would commonly find in the gifting aisle. I topped that with a white present bow for the “foam” of the “beer.” Then on a pick I printed the number ’30’ to place in the “beer.” I did this in PowerPoint as well filling the numbers black. I printed, laminated and cut them out. Then glued it to a larger kabob stick and stuck it in the glass mug.
I placed this mug in the center of the paper doily. Around the mug, I placed five cupcakes around for guests to grab at any time, but also to make it more decorative.
For the surprise –
To make the surprise a little more fun for guests and for my husband – we all head up a picture of my husband as one or two year old to our faces.
To do this – I had to find a picture of him that was once again the most forward facing picture. I had to take a picture of it then placed it in PowerPoint to blow up and print. If you can’t tell, I love PowerPoint. I printed this, laminated (also love my laminator) and cut.
I taped them to jumbo wooden craft sticks. I placed them in a storage basket I already had at home and printed a sign from PowerPoint (shocker) that said “please take a mask to be worn for the surprise.”
This was so much fun to see everyone holding one of these up to their faces and my husband was truly surprised to see his face everywhere.
Although I had to put in some elbow grease to these items, it was still fairly easy. These little details put together made for the perfect, simple, low-key and budget-friendly party for my husband.
I did have help with the location filling in the rest for me, making it a great atmosphere for a 30th birthday. It was at a bar-hangout place where food trucks offered food you could order. It didn’t cost me anything to reserve a couple of big tables, but also meant zero privacy since it wasn’t a private room. I took the zero cost as a win though. I ordered a few appetizers/finger food for people to pick at, but then the rest was up to the guests.
I hope these simple items can help you when planning any decade party for the man in your life!