Mum's the Word: Keeping a Surprise a Surprise

Throwing a surprise party can be challenging. Let’s take a look at some helpful tips on how to keep a surprise a surprise!

Tell a select few. The best way to make sure that your surprise birthday party planning remains a secret is to tell as few people as possible. Keep the party planning details within the smallest circle of people possible, and you'll be more likely to surprise your special someone.

Find a partner in crime. You'll need someone to help you with some of the tasks, like picking up the cake or driving the guest of honor to the event. You can't always do everything, especially when surprises are involved. If you can’t find someone to help out, you could ask a close friend if you can use their contact information for dealing with florists or other vendors, so that a well-meant check-up call doesn't spoil the surprise. 

Devise a convincing story. How do you plan to get the guest of honor to the party? One of the most important pieces is to get your story straight, including all accomplices. Keeping a good surprise gets down to the details. And remember that surprise parties can be ruined by something as simple as the guest of honor recognizing a friend’s car in a driveway or parking lot! 

Make sure no one tells. If there's someone on your guest list that can't be counted on to keep a secret, you may need to keep them out of the loop for as long as possible. Maybe make them part of the excuse to get the guest of honor to the party. Tell both of them the same thing. You don't want your efforts foiled by someone with loose lips!  

Communicate with guests online. Send online surprise birthday invitations so that it’s obvious the party’s meant to be a secret and stress several times throughout the invitation that the party is meant to be a surprise. Be sure to communicate with guests over the invitation’s message boards to eliminate mysterious phone calls, sneaking around, and the chance that an email will accidentally end up in the guest of honor's inbox. 

Send invites 2 weeks out. Don't send the invitations out too far in advance. Wait as long as you possibly can without being rude (about two weeks before the event). If you feel bad about the late notice, explain to your guests that you're trying to keep everything as secret as possible. People love to be in on any kind of planning, so it’s likely that your guests will be able to keep quiet!


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