How to Plan a Gender Reveal Party (+ a free invite download!)
We found out a few weeks ago that we are having a baby GIRL!! The day we found out was one of the most fun days of our life so far.
Deciding TO Have a Gender Reveal Party:
I had been on the fence about whether or not to have a gender reveal party, or if Bjorn and I should just find out the news ourselves at the doctor’s office. Initially, I thought I’d decided not to have a reveal party, but as time went on, I kept thinking how special it would be to find out with family members around!
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When I finally decided on the fact that we’d do a party, I jumped in wholeheartedly! I love planning parties, and if we were going to be inviting a lot of people, I wanted it to be a great time for everyone involved! I’m so glad we ended up having a gender reveal party, because we have such wonderful memories from that day.
With so many of our relatives (especially Bjorn’s) here in Minnesota, we opted to invite anyone who could come from the family on all sides. We’ll be able to tell our daughter someday that 2 of her great-grandparents, 4 grandparents, and many other relatives were there that day, and all were so excited to find out! 🙂
Our Approach:
Since we didn’t want to create “sides” or anything like that, we didn’t have people “vote” on what sex they’d prefer the baby to be…We didn’t want anyone to feel sheepish or concerned about how they should or did vote. In fact, our main pennant banner at the party said “PINK OR BLUE, WE LOVE YOU!” The point was that we’d all love the baby, whether Baby was a boy or girl!
The goal of the party was to simply spend time together and eventually find out what gender Baby Olson is! Any party is a fun excuse to get family together to celebrate, and that’s exactly what this event was. 🙂
Steps For Planning a Gender Reveal Party:
1 // Have your anatomy scan ultrasound! This is an important step! 😉 I’d personally wait until after your appointment before announcing a date for your gender reveal party, because some babies are a bit more modest during that ultrasound and you may have to come back later to try to find out the gender again.
Usually this ultrasound is done around weeks 18-22, because that’s when it becomes easier for the ultrasound technician to determine the baby’s sex. I believe we had ours done at 20 weeks.
** Also, make sure you and your husband have decided if YOU TWO want to know the gender before the party or not. Bjorn and I opted not to find out until we were at the party with everyone. You’ll want to alert your ultrasound tech of this, so that they can write the results in an envelope for you if you don’t want to find out yet.
2 // Pick a date for your party. Like I said earlier, we wanted to just do a “family members” party with any relatives who could come. We made sure the date worked for our parents and then proceeded from there to invite anyone else who could come.
Bjorn and I waited a full week after our ultrasound appointment (with the results envelope on our kitchen table!) before our party. That’s just how the dates and scheduling worked out for us. You may want to wait that long, if you want a good amount of time to plan and decorate!
3 // Send out the invite! I used Canva (one of my very favorite ways to design graphics!) to create our invite. I used ideas I had seen floating around on the Internet for inspiration but ultimately ended up creating my own invitation.
I then downloaded the invitation graphic and saved it onto my computer. For some people, I printed out the invite and handed it to them in person; for most, though, I just emailed the graphic or messaged it to them via Facebook.
I wanted to share the invite with you in a downloadable format, so you can use it for your own party!! I’m including the 3 options here that I designed and decided between. Just click the images or links to download! (The one I used is Option 3, the last one!)
^^ Download Option 1 ^^
^^ Download Option 2 ^^
^^ Download Option 3 ^^
4 // Decide on the food. This is one of my favorite parts. 🙂 Food is pretty much what turns a gathering of people into a party! You’ll have to evaluate how much food you’ll need based on the number of people coming, and also based on if you’re serving a meal or just snacks/dessert.
I set our party for 1 pm, so our guests would know that it didn’t include lunch. I also mentioned that “refreshments will be served” in the invitation. However, we had a lot of great food so no one had the possibility of going away hungry! 🙂
If you’re looking for some menu inspiration, then here’s what we served at our party with 17 guests:
Our Menu:
- Meat, cheese, & crackers platter
- Cut fruit with fruit dip (plus clementines)
- Cut veggies with dip
- Individual 7-layer dip cups
- Onesie-shaped cake
- Pink & blue almond bark-drizzled popcorn
- Pink & blue punch, & ice water
- Pink & blue rock candy
- Hershey’s candy bars decorated with pink & blue Sharpies
5 // Decide on the decor. I kept decor easy to plan for by gravitating towards pink and blue. These kinds of decorations are pretty readily available in dollar stores, Walmart, or Target.
With a general decorative feel of pink and blue, it’s easy to then use the displayed food as the rest of the decorations! 🙂 And everyone loves a party where they walk in and see lovely food displayed! So, remember you don’t have to go all out with fancy decorations when you’ll have a lot of yummy snacks available.
What we did for decor:
- Pink, blue, & white streamers
- Pink & blue balloons
- Pink & blue pom pom decorations (from the dollar store)
- Pennant that says “Pink or blue, we love you!”
- Pink & blue tablecloths on basically every horizontal surface 🙂
- Pink & blue faux flowers in vases (one on each tablecloth)
- Pink & blue napkins, plates, and plastic silverware
- Pink & blue rock candy, displayed in mason jars
- Pink & blue paper straws (from Target), displayed in mason jars
- Signs on the punch dispensers that say “Tickled Pink Lemonade” and “Little Boy Blue Punch”
- Sign on the front door that says “He Or She? Come In To See!” 🙂
6 // Shop for the party. I started shopping for the party decorations a week before, but I bought food ingredients 1-2 days beforehand. (That especially makes sense if you’re having people RSVP so you can get a sense of how much food you’ll need.) I made multiple shopping trips to area dollar stores in order to search around for the best deals and to snag everything I needed. It REALLY helps to make a shopping list in order of how you walk through the store (one of my favorite shopping hacks ever).
7 // Hit some larger tasks the day before.
What to do:
- Pick up the special reveal item! I went to a party store with my envelope from the doctor’s office, and we had a big black balloon filled with helium and pink or blue confetti! But there are other awesome ideas we almost went with like a cake or cupcakes filled with pink or blue frosting…or a box full of colored balloons…or a baby girl/baby boy clothing set wrapped up in a gift box!
- Clean!! I’ve rounded up all of my housecleaning checklists HERE! You’ll want all living areas of your place clean, in addition to the kitchen (for any friends/family wanting to help with food even during the party) and the bathroom, of course. Something I’ve also learned over time is that if people haven’t seen your place before or even recently, they may want a house tour, too. Just something to keep in mind. 🙂 Don’t be afraid to ask for help – I ended up asking for help because I got a bit overwhelmed and I was super tired the day before the party! My in-laws were amazing and helped to clean and set up things like balloons and streamers.
- Make sure you have enough (or extra) seating available. Many gender reveal parties involve sitting to eat, and sitting around during the big reveal! I pulled chairs from other rooms of the house.
- Make whatever food you can the day before. We made the onesie cake (which Bjorn carved into its onesie shape really well!) and frosted that the night before. My in-laws made the pink & blue almond bark-drizzled popcorn then, too.
8 // Do final touches the day of!
What to do:
- Wash and cut all fruit and veggies
- Assemble the 7-layer dips (at least a couple hours in advance – these take longer than you think – I’m so grateful my sisters-in-law helped put these together!)
- Set out and display all of the food (get things like a meat & cheese platter displayed, and the onesie cake uncovered right before guests arrive)
- Double-check that everything is clean (especially bathroom)
- Make the beverages (make sure you have ice!) — We made CountryTime Pink Lemonade, ice water, and the Little Boy Blue Punch was just 1 jug of blue Hawaiian punch, 1 large can pineapple juice, and 1 liter Sprite.
- Ask someone to take a video or photos, even if it’s just a little tripod set up or a relative with a phone! It’ll be fun to re-live the excitement later…when all of the craziness is over!
9 // Enjoy!! That day was one of our favorite memories yet! Just soak in time with your guests, enjoy the food that you so meticulously made 🙂 and have fun during the last few minutes before everyone finds out the gender! We probably did our reveal about an hour into the party, so that people could grab food and have some conversations before the baby became the main topic again. It’s just a nice excuse to get together and catch up with friends and family, so I’m glad we kept the emphasis on that, too!
Are you doing a gender reveal? Have you done one in the past? What fun decor or events did you have at your party?
