Celebrating 50 Years of Mark Wolfe

This weekend we celebrated 50 years of Mark Wolfe. Mark is my husband, ride or die, adventure partner, BFF…he is all the things to me, so I wanted to really celebrate this milestone birthday. So, I planned the Mark, our family, all of the guests had a great time and SO DID I!!! My goal of making him feel valued and loved was accomplished (insert happy dance here). I have been planning and preparing for this party for the last year…well OVER the last year. Things are expensive and there are a lot of details that go into an event like this; so I thought I’d share my planning process with you since it is both more rewarding and more cost effective to take care of most everything yourself; if you are able to do so.

Trust the Process

The most important advice is DO NOT wait until the last minute. I’ll admit that a year may be excessive, but it really helps with the stress levels if you know you have enough time to take care of anything that may pop up or not go as planned. You will find that many of the things you need will be out of stock or will take more time than you have to be delivered, especially if you do not live in a city where 24 hour Amazon deliveries are a real thing. We are Amazon Prime members, but our deliveries are ALWAY at least 3 days out since we do not live in a major city.

1. SIZE: My first step was to decide how big of an event this would be. It is a 50th birthday bash. The word bash indicates a large crowd.
2. VENUE & DATE: It is August and very, very HOT. I do not want to be out in the heat for 12+ hours with set up, party time, and cleanup and we have older family members who definitely cannot handle the heat, so air conditioning is a must. While we have a huge yard at the ranch, we do not have a big enough indoor space with air conditioning to house the guests. Therefore, I needed to secure an indoor venue with air conditioning on a date that will work for the VIPs of the family.
3. SAVE THE DATES: No matter if you are a year out or three months out, send out save the dates. I opted to create digital save the dates using CANVA, a free publication site. I like Canva because it will work for people like me with extensive graphic design experience and for those with limited experience. I emailed, texted, and used Facebook (FB) messenger to deliver the save the date “cards” and also asked that people join the FB event if they use FB. Every few weeks I posted something to the FB event so that those who marked maybe or going would get notifications and the event would be kept on the radar.
4. THEME: I scoured Pinterest and Google Images for party theme inspiration and narrowed it down to what I had the time and ability to make myself. As I said before, I have extensive graphic design experience, so If I can see it, I can make it happen on the computer. So this part was easy for me. If I saw a saying that I liked, I copied and then altered the previously made Canva design to display the saying in the fonts schemes and color schemes that I had previously chosen and then printed the design out. I did this with all of the centerpieces and signage for the event except the cake topper and cupcake picks, which I ordered from Amazon. If DIYing the party décor is not an easy task for you, there are plenty of premade party packs that can be purchased at brick and mordor stores, on Amazon, Etsy, Oriental Trading, Really Good Stuff, and many more a variety of price points just by doing a quick Google search. This is another reason not to procrastinate…you may need to make orders over time in order to include the specialty items into your budgets.
5. SUPPLIES: Before ordering anything, I check what items I already own that could work for things like food containers, centerpieces, table coverings, etc. Then I head to my nearest Dollar Tree before hitting the big box or party supply stores. I also compare prices with online vendors vs. the physical stores. I was going to order a party pack from Amazon with plates, napkins, plasticware, etc. for $30.00, but I needed three to cover the number of guests I was planning for. To my great surprise, my local Wal-Mart had everything in the Amazon pack for less than a dollar each, so I was able to snag everything for the food for less than $30.00…whew…that could have been a $60.00 mistake! In addition, it is best to have a good idea of how extensive you want the decorations to be. Hanging streamers from a 20 foot ceiling is going to take more than just a chair and some tape to accomplish and it is definitely going to take a good amount of time and help. Keep your decorations within your abilities, time allowance, and help options.
6. FOOD: That’s an easy one…prepare the food yourself or hire a catering service. We cook around here, so I planned to make all of the cupcakes, beef BBQ sandwiches, charcuterie tray, and cucumber ranch bites myself, While my dad prepared the smoked pulled pork. We also had chips and a few friends decided to pitch in and bring a dish as well. The Cupcakes, bbq, and pulled pork can all be made ahead and frozen until the day of or day before the event.
7. ENTERTAINMENT: These days, if you have a good bluetooth speaker, that is really all you need, but for this milestone birthday, I decided on live music and hired a local duo who Mark likes. While the band wasn’t playing, I had our JBL speaker playing in the background and it worked out just great. MAKE SURE to confirm and follow up with the entertainment a few weeks to a month before the even to make sure everything is set and ready. My band double booked themselves and we had to change their performance times. If I hadn’t followed up and KEPT MY BOOKING CONVERSATION in a screenshot, we would have all been waiting for a band that wouldn’t have shown up and that would have been really disappointing.
8. INVITATIONS: I used the same delivery methods for invitations as I did for the save the dates. Text, email, FB messenger, posting to the event, and I also printed about 20 invitations to hand to people who do not utilize the previously listed communication methods. I delivered these a month to three weeks before the party.
9. SETUP: I strongly suggest creating a to do list as things pop up in your thoughts and using that as a checklist during set up. Make sure you know when you will have access to the party spot and that you can accomplish all of the tasks in the allotted time without completely exhausting yourself…you need to enjoy the party too! I prepped as many decoration items as I could before hand and had a sketched out “map” (shown below) of how I wanted things set up in the space before heading to the venue. This made things easier for anyone helping because they just looked at the map and knew what went where and it helped my stress level and brain load by not having to fully remember every single detail. I decided I wanted a dedicated cake table, each seating had a centerpiece, and the two tall bar style tables had a large centerpiece and a smaller one on each side. Each of the centerpieces had a cute and cheeky themed saying and some kind of treat for the guests. Our venue had an out of the way countertop that was perfect for the food and beverages we provided. I also opted to use the venue’s cash bar option so I did not have to provide adult beverages (huge money saver).
10. INTERACTIVES: In addition to the decorations, decide if you want any kind of interactives to keep the guests busy while they aren’t mingling, eating, or dancing. It is so awkward to be at a party and just have everyone sitting a staring at each other. My husband was given one request and requested absolutely no party games (party pooper) but in exchange he had to wear a very cheeky birthday sash. In lieu of games, I opted for a photo backdrop area where we could take photos with guests or guests could take selfies with the very fun pennant banners of Mark’s face with a birthday hat or a cowboy hat and all of the fun balloon art that is so popular these days. I also provided a basket and cards for people to write messages or memories.
11. ENJOY THE FUN: This is where I struggle. I have a very difficult time letting go and not tending to people. This time I was determined and made sure that once everything was set up, there would be nothing for me to tend to except the be present and active in the party itself.

Here are a few photos of the invitations and décor all designed and made by me, but please feel free to utilize these for inspiration for your next special event.

Laters, April Wolfe