Celebrating 35 with a Beer Lover’s Fave Things

Beer became a new passion for my hubby. So when turned 35, we celebrated with a few of his favorite things for the big bash!

Beer Party Backstory

So a little backstory…I/we kinda started this tradition on his 30th birthday of going all out for milestone birthdays. And because it’s only done every 5 years I have a little liberty on my spending for it. For his 30th birthday, I threw a surprise party, invited a bunch of his friends and family and even brought his mom + 3 of her besties down from Chicago to surprise him.

I then presented him with a gift box and told him I was going to ask him a question and he had to answer with a yes or yes; he shook the box to make sure that it wasn’t an engagement ring! It was a custom t-shirt inviting him along for a 7 day/6 night trip to Vegas and I’d already cleared it with his boss to be gone for the week.

I’m telling you…these things go all out!

So for 35, he knew that I was up to something… In 2013, started going to beer vs. wine tastings in our city and kind of introduced us to beer. He started getting more curious about it around 2015, as craft beers and breweries had really started taking off in Memphis; I knew that his birthday bash needed to be beer-related. I decided to host it at Wiseacre Brewery and was so happy that I made that decision…the staff there is great! Since it was a surprise, I had to recruit friends, near and far, to help pull the whole thing off.

His Beer-y Favorite Things

Hubby isn’t a complex man and, when he likes something he tends to stick with it, so coming up with the menu was pretty easy. I stuck with his favorite foods: popcorn and hot wings, throwing in pretzels as a perfect pairing with the beer we’d imbibe.

The popcorn bar was certainly his favorite! I was lucky enough to have a local friend who loves party stuff as much as I do and she let me borrow her full-size popcorn station. We also had Chicago mix (caramel and cheddar) and tuxedo mix (chocolate and vanilla) with several different seasonings from which to choose.

The dessert station took a hit pretty quickly. My awesomely talented friend behind Sparkling Sweets Boutique hooked me up with some chocolate covered Oreos, beer mug cake pops, and mini donuts; I made a beer glaze to put on top of the donuts.

I made some of my decorated cookies for him, with some phrases that have been a part of our years-long running jokes and made some with his initials in different typographies; we also had the cherry jello cookies that he busted me making 2 nights before…

Our dessert table wouldn’t have been complete without hubby’s homemade caramel cake! I’d honestly never made one or had one as delicious until he’d made one for me in the early days of our courtship 🙂

Just about everything was DIY and it was truly a labor of love to make these for him. Check out this post on how I made the 3′ tall beer signs and the beer mugs for the dessert table.

Beer-y Great Memories

The thing I loved the absolute most about this party was having the opportunity to show my husband how much his happiness is a priority in our marriage. He was truly appreciative by all of the trouble that I went through to pull this off and was very surprised.

One of the true testaments in marriage is the intentionality of making each other feel loved and appreciated. Do it together and see your relationship continue to bloom.

Have you ever gone out of the ordinary to plan an awesome event for your significant other? Let me know in the comments below!