Do you want to celebrate a wedding milestone ? Then Halloween is an excellent theme. Yes I am not kidding 😉 Plus its the only party where you have to look your worst so no dressing up pressure. LOL
My friends called me crazy on choosing the theme. Halloween is associated with ghosts and witches and I told them precisely that’s the reason why halloween makes an excellent theme for wedding anniversary. Pun intended 😉
And I made it a ‘desi’ version by calling it Bhutiyapa!!!! It was our 15th anniversary and hence 15 years of Bhutiyapa it was!! So lread on if you want to know more on how to plan such an event.
- Invitations
It was a surprise party so we made a surprise save-the-date invitation and sent it out to our friends first before sending out the main invite later.
Once you are ready with your spooky invite send that across with a dress code. Since the theme is halloween you can give your guests a color code of black with freedom to express themselves with some halloween makeup
2. Venue
Once you have all the RSVPs you can start planning your event. I hired a small banquet and decorated it in halloween theme. Same can be done even at home. We repeated a get together party with a few other friends at home with the same props and decor. A photo corner with props is always a lot of fun. You can hire an event company or just do it on your own. We bought a lot of decorating stuff from party shop and decked up the entire banquet in Halloween theme. A sure shot decor item would be a spider web you can hang in the ceiling and you can buy black cloth and hang it around in rags and put some skeletons on it. I even went ahead and got a huge flex printed with graveyard print. Last but not the least play with red and green lights.Tada!
I had a photo corner made with a huge flex and kept some props there like a dagger running through the head, skeleton slip on, pirate gun. I also got a personalized frame made for photo souveniers.
3. Costumes
Vampires and witches are some easy haloween looks. Many other costumes are readily available in the market or you can even design your own. A simple, cost effective and yet great DIY idea would be a black dress with some scary face makeup. I decided to wear a black dress and designed my hat. I had a black creeper drawn with an eyeliner on my arm. For my partner it was a vampire look. I had bought a vampire cape and a tie with skulls. I took his white shirt and smeared it with a red lipstick. For the other boys of the house I bought skeleton costumes. We both did the same eye makeup as couples. I had bought some false vampire teeth for my son along with pirate hat and a witch robe and broomstick for my daughter.
4. Cake
I had designed 2 cakes with small ghosts with LED lights inside and the other which read 15 in roman numeral with a spider web. I had got small skeleton table LED candles to place near the cake. The knife was also huge with red blood stains on the steel plate.
5. Event
There are tons of games and ideas available online for a halloween party. I however like to come up with my own ideas. I decided to have a grand surprise entry for my better half followed with his change of clothes, opening the bar, cake cutting, a bhutiyapa walk, few dances prepared by friends and family and finally DJ! On the day of the event, I made people stand in two rows near the entrance door with candles in their hands.
It was a surprise party and my better half got a shock of his life when he entered the banquet completely dark with people holding candles and ‘Gumnaam hai koi’ song playing in the background. I walked towards him with a lighted pumpkin in my hand. Imagine wife walking towards a husband dressed as a witch with pumpkin in hand 😉 LOL I wish I could capture that first look on his face;)
After the grand entry he changed and got into his halloween costume and was ready to rock and roll.
I had got a skeleton cover for whiskey bottle with a skeleton glass. He opened the cover and declared the bar open which was followed with cake cutting.
If its a family event we have to definitely put up some dance shows. Family and friends got together and prepared some eerie dances on eerie songs. It was fun dancing on those weird numbers in a weird scary way. I have always like Michael Jackson’s thriller.
Dances were followed by a Bhutiyapa walk – halloween fashion show where all the guests had to walk the ramp with their most scary look. This was hilarious as people really went ahead and did all sorts of scary things. What followed was a riot of laughter.
After the Bhutiyapa walk was a small speech winding up into DJ playing some latest numbers and people grooving to it. All men women and kids were all sporty enough to join the fun
Well so after all Halloween isnt such a bad theme for a birthday or anniversary party. Here is a small gallery of pics that people took while enjoying themselves.
So go ahead and plan that halloween anniversary party. Its going to be a riot of laughter and loads of memories for the coming years.