Surprise!!! Joshua turned 30 two months ago! Prior to his birthday we talked a lot about about his expectations and wishes and if there is one thing Joshua never lacks, it’s ideas. The hard part for me was to figure out which of the ideas I could make happen.

Luckily I had a lot of help from my mom to figure out a plan. We sat together and decided we’re gonna host a cocktail party in our apartment. We decided it was easiest and cheapest to host it at home instead of renting a place.

The trickiest part was to arrange everything around Josh without him noticing. Thankfully he didn’t ask too many questions and he didn’t act like Sherlock Holmes when ever something out of the order happened.

I ran into a few issues that I had to figure out prior to the party. One, we don’t own a car, so buying several liters of drinks was gonna be an issue. Two, fridges in Switzerland sadly aren’t like fridges in the US, so I had to find place to cool a huge amount of drinks, appetizers and the cake. The latter led up to question number 3 - was I able to make a grand cake? (which was one of Joshuas wishes). Question number 4 was how I would get Joshua out of the house during most of his birthday without raising suspicion. And the final problem was to figure out drinks - I planned on making a cocktail party so I had to serve mixed drinks but I didn’t want to spend all night mixing drinks. So here’s how it ended up working out:

Up to a week before the birthday:

I decided on making burgers that night so I ordered the ground beef at our local butcher
I figured out a plan to borrow a car from my co-worker
I asked a friend of Joshua’s if he had time to play a game with him and keep him busy during the day
I designed an invitation on the iPad and sent it out to all the friends
I created a gift list with things Joshua would like

The week of:

I spent most of the evenings preparing everything I could do prior to the party, so the day before I could get right to action:
- Choosing the recipes for food: I chose the burger patty recipe (linked here) and all the appetizers and wrote all the ingredients on meal lists.
- I decided on the drinks that were going to be available: in addition to beer, wine and Prosecco, people would be able to make a Bramble, Gin and Tonic, Dark and Stormy, Old Fashioned, and Rum and Coke. The drinks had to be easy to make because people would be making them themselves. I planned on making small measuring cups for every ingredient!
- Writing the recipes for the drinks to hang on the wall

The day before the party:

I borrowed my friends car and went shopping. Boy that was a lot of stuff! Could have never done that with my bike. Lol.
I borrowed a cooler box from another co-worker and bought ice at the gas station to keep everything cool.
I prepared the cake. It was a S’mores cake and it had to be cooled in the fridge over night.
I prepared all the things Joshua needed to be able to play games with his friend. I packed it all in a suitcase.
I informed all our neighbours of the party

The drink bar - juices were already pressed, peels peeled and small measuring cups were ready. Like that the guests didn’t have to go to the kitchen.

The day of:

Joshua got breakfast in bed and then was told when he had to be ready. When the time came I handed him the suitcase, an address, and wished him a nice day! He was super surprised, I wasn’t coming with him. Once he was out of the house I started shifting around all the furniture in our home to create space. Two of my friends came over to help me decorate and cook. It slowly started to look like a party was going to take place. My friends prepared the burger patties and fried them. They were going to be heated up again later in the oven. At 5PM our first guests arrived. In the meantime our friend sent Joshua back home. He arrived 30min after the first guests and we all jumped up behind the furniture and yelled “Surprise”!!!

The party was a big success: People were able to eat, chat and enjoy, I was also able to be with people since all the food was prepared. And most of all Joshua had an amazing time!

How to Plan a Surprise Party on a Budget