Today is the 30th birthday of my dear and wonderful husband, Price! Today we did a little breakfast in bed, but we probably won’t do a whole lot more big celebrating tonight because… We celebrated early this year– surprise style!
Price is a bigtime cigar fan, and I knew he’s always wanted a surprise party, so I got to collaborating with my family months ago planning a surprise evening for him with the theme CIGARS & STARS! (Let me take this moment to give MAJOR props to my parents, who not only hosted this shin dig at their house, but helped more than they realize with the execution!)
T H E I N V I T A T I O N
The invitaiton for the party went out via email several weeks beforehand so our guests could plan ahead! I ended up making a custom cigar label-esque design that ended up being handy for more than just putting on Rolo cigars as party favors! The invitaiton and signage, for example, all donned this little design!
And everyone did a fantastic job of keeping it mum… Price was TOTALLY surprised!!
T H E D E C O R + F A V O R S
Price is a ham. There’s no way around it. He is great at making people laugh (particularly me!) and can make some of the most hilarious faces. He also loves dressing up and getting into a theme. SO, I gathered some pictures of his many dressings up and face making and used them all over the party. One of my favorite pictures of him ended up on the cake…
For favors, I ended up using the cigar label design (mixed with real cigar label designs) to spruce up some little matchboxes for folks to take home to remember the evening by!
The label also turned out great in it’s original purpose of banding some Rolos wrapped in craft paper to look like cigars!
I got really lucky that Price has two friends who work at the same cigar shop, The Country Squire (right off Lakeland Drive for those who are familiar with Jackson!) They were able to hook me up, not only with a bunch of cigars, which we’ll get to later, but they also sold me a bunch of empty cigar boxes for next to nothing, which ended up being SO helpful in displaying food and favors!
The part of the decor that was SO much fun for me was the aforementioned old pictures. I picked some of my favorites and hung twine at the top of every door frame and clothes pinned the Price pics for everyone to laugh at! (I mean… Enjoy…) 🙂
I made some tissue paper garland that spruced up the cake table area by using the tutorial I found here. Next time, I plan to make some using all metallic paper. The little silver parts of this one are my favorite! But I wanted to keep some black and tan in the mix to keep it from being too girly!
T H E F O O D
The food spread was kept mainly to some of Price’s favorite foods! Hamburgers (Krystal’s, specifically), fried cheese (he LOVES the cheese fritters from Amerigo!) and fried chicken (the variation at Julep is one of his alltime faves) were the featured savory bites. For the sweets, I got him a white cake with white icing from Kroger (for some reason he loves grocery store cake?!) and I made some Cake Mix Cookies, which he always goes wild over when I make at home!
Cigar boxes came in very handy when displaying the vittles!
T H E D R I N K S
The bar setup was one of the aspects of the party I was most excited about!
O’Donoghue is how the Irish originally spelled our last name, which has morphed into Donahoo over time. This bar in Dublin, Ireland had the perfect storefront to use as a bar sign! I printed out the front, mounted it on foam core, poked holes to spell BAR, then backlit it so the holes lit up! Pretty easy and probably one of the more popular details at the par-tay!
I follow West Elm on Instagram and they put up a picture a while back of a bar that didn’t have any full size liquor bottles… Only minis! I clung to that idea, and this party was the perfect excuse to make it happen!
Mini liquor, mini wines of several varieties… Even mini Coke, Sprite, and Tonic mixers to go with! I love how it turned out!
Since coffee is a popular accompaniment to cigars, we set up a little Keurig station where folks could make a cup of coffee and get it doctored up with cream, sugar, and of course Bailey’s!
T H E C I G A R S
The cigars were the main event! Price’s sweet friends Josh and Jon David from The Country Squire helped me pick out a variety of different cigars that would be good to have on a table for the guys (and a few girls!) to pick from. The mix they steered me towards was just perfect!! My dad also busted out a few Cubans to spice things up, which all the guys were crazy about!
T H E S U R P R I S E + P A R T Y
As I stated earlier, we actually did pull off the surprise! I just knew, with Price being so smart and all, that he would figure it out. Luckily, he’d been so crazy with work that all of the near-giveaways got overlooked!
All in all, it was a fantastic evening filled with lots of fun, fellowship, and laughter. I’m so thankful for Price and everything he means to me! Thanks to everyone who helped make the party so successful!!
These party pups are tuckered out!
You are so crafty! These are the kind of parties I wish I could pull off. But I never have a reason to plan a party. Maybe I should change that! lol
When would you like to be a part of my new blog? 🙂
I LOVE your new blog!! The title is awesome! We need to get back to guesting for each other soon!! Maybe next week? Hopefully my life will have resumed a normal pace by that point! 🙂
Sounds good! Just remember to catch me over there from now on. I’m not blogging here anymore. 🙂
How cuteeeeee is thisssssssss!!! Even the food compliments the party! Love!