There is so much you can do with invites.  You can wrap them in boxes and deliver them, create them to resemble your theme, the possibilities are endless.

The thing to remember is that your invitations are the way people will find out about the party, so you want to set the mood of the party with your invite choice.  Do you want to have a more formal party?  Your invitation should reflect that (and say something on it as well).  Is it a luau?  Use a cut out of a Palm tree to write or print the info on.

Make sure you include any important info about the party.  You can never go wrong addressing the who, what, where, when and why (In fact, if you are missing any of these things you probably should hire someone to plan your party for you- and yes, I am available, but it’s not cheap .

A lot of books will tell you to mail or hand deliver your invites anywhere between 3-6 weeks before the party.  In general 3 weeks is a good amount of time, but if you are wanting a large turnout, closer to 6 weeks is better.  When Greg and I threw our Christmas party last year, we sent out a save the date at the end of September (you can never be too early if you want people at your Christmas party).  In my opinion, the earlier you tell people, the better the chance of them making it (especially people with kids!)

Keep in mind you should ALWAYS have some form of RSVP.  Either an e-mail, web page, telephone number, whatever.  Some people will tell you in person and that is fine, but if you want to save money, you need to know how many people to expect.  If they don’t RSVP at all, plan on them not being there.  Of the people that RSVP yes, you can expect 10% of them to not show up (stuff happens, you can’t get mad about it, just roll with it).  If they RSVP no, believe them.

photo by: MShades

Sometimes I think our minds can be our worst enemies. For the last four years I have been telling Greg that I want a surprise party for my birthday. So far it hasn’t happened. Part of that is my fault seeing as I continually badger him for the month prior with leading questions like, “When is my surprise party? Who are you inviting? Where will it be?” For some reason he doesn’t like this and I think it deters him from having one simply because it’s not fun putting together a none surprise surprise party (if that makes any sense). Every year I tell myself that I won’t say anything about it in hopes that he will have one, but every year I shoot myself in the foot by asking him (I can’t help it, birthdays get me all excited!)

Last week he was in Seattle for a church planting conference and he returned on Thursday. From there we drove to Clovis to visit some friends. I had to ask him a few times if I could use his phone because my phone battery was dead. He didn’t hesitate so I didn’t have any suspicions. Well, once we returned from our trip I asked him a few times if I could use his phone and he, in no uncertain terms, told me, “NO you have your own phone so stop using mine!” (He also mentioned the price we paid for me to have this phone and effectively shut me up).

At this point you are all wondering to yourselves, what do phones have to do with surprise parties? Well don’t get your panties in a ruffle (especially you Brandon) I ‘m getting to that part of the story. I assumed, like any thinking woman, that my husband was planning a party and didn’t want me to see his phone because there was incriminating information on it with all the details. That was, until, he let me see his phone again and my hopes were once again dashed.

On Tuesday night he decided to start asking me what I wanted to do on my birthday which, in my clearly over scheming mind, meant that he had no plans for throwing me a party and we now have a short amount of time to plan and invite people over if I in fact decided that I wanted to do something. Of course, his lack of planning cannot be completely his fault, he was away for a week and prior to that had to prepare to leave.

So I was content that I had, yet another time, blotched my chances for the ever doomed surprise party. But I was really excited to possible hang with some friends.

I called a friend and left them a message to come over instead of going to work and mentioned “my party”. Greg overheard and that phrase created a curious face and inquiring question in which he asked me, “What party?” So of course, my red flag goes up again and I wonder, is there perhaps a slight redeeming chance that he has pulled off a masterful surprise party that not even a CIA agent could have detected? Alas, I fear not. I think he just got confused with the wording I choose to use.

Anyhow, he has made my day the best it could be. He cleaned the entire house for me, brought me breakfast in bed and let me read on the couch all day. In addition, he set up this awesome new website for me and a facebook. He is the best husband ever! We also get to go shopping for my birthday present tomorrow. All in all, I would say it’s been a good day filled with birthday surprises that I couldn’t have anticipated. Thank you God for my wonderful husband.

And now for the purple confetti…