hosting a gender reveal party Archives

I am primarily a wedding designer and planner but it finally came time to throw a special event just for me. Recently my husband and I found out that we were expecting our first baby in April and as a born planner, I just had to know the baby’s gender to be able to plan the nursery, the name, the registry and of course the baby shower. We took a blood test at 10 weeks pregnant, picked up the envelope at 12 weeks and then waited 3 more weeks with that envelope burning a whole in our drawer to find out the sex. I love (most) surprises and knew that I wanted to throw a party to reveal the secret with our family. Special thanks to Jessa at Love & Light Photographs for these photos we will cherish. Below are my tips for hosting a fun and memorable gender reveal party:

Pick a theme. A theme does not have to be over the top or in your face. In my case, I chose citrus (specifically lemons) as my theme. If you know anything about pregnancy, you know that the size is often referred to in terms of fruits and vegetables so I used that as my jumping off point. Our invites read “Pink or Blue, We can’t wait to Squeeze You” and featured citrus illustrations by Rifle Paper Co., we offered Elderflower Lemonade as part of our signature cocktail, incorporate lemons into our centerpieces and menu. I love how gender neutral and cheerful the color yellow is!
Set the table. When gathering your closest family and friends around the table, it is important to create a warm, inviting environment that will encourage guests to create memories, stay a while and have lots of laughs. I love assigning seating even for small dinner parties to take the guess work out of where your guests should sit and keep the conversation going. Plus lots of candles of course!
Stock the bar. Along with the usual spirits, I love signature drinks that compliment the theme. We named our signature cocktail, “Respect Your Elders”, which mixed vodka, elderflower lemonade, cranberry juice and garnished with lemon and cranberries for a festive and refreshing drink or, in my case, make it a virgin by excluding the vodka.
Involve your guests. We decided it would be fun to have our guests guess the gender before the actual reveal. People love bragging rights when they were able to guess correctly. We had our guests write their name on a lemon that either said “boy” or “girl” and pin it to the board. Overwhelmingly, we thought girl. I believe only two guessed boy and they were right! What a surprise!
Make the reveal interactive. We have all seen variations of the gender reveal involving popping a balloon, balloons out of the box, cutting the cake and the list goes on and on! All are so fun and I love nothing more than watching the reaction of the expecting parents. Lucas and I wanted to do something that would draw out the reveal a little longer. He came up with the genius twist on the cake idea. We asked Gina at The Vintage Cake to bake us some lemon cupcakes but inside just ONE of the cupcakes would include either pink or blue frosting. The best part of this experience was the suspense! Each guest had a cupcake and we started with the soon-to-be grandparents as each person bit into their cupcake until we finally found the cupcake with the color blue! I think we went through five people until we finally found it! We laughed, we cried, we shouted “I am so shocked” and yelled “congratulations!”. It was such a special moment that I have watched the video on my phone a million times already. It was truly a surprise that we will never forget! A very special thank you to my friendors that helped me bring this vision to life!