Grown Up Birthday Party Ideas

Picking a theme for your birthday party helps make it entertaining and memorable.Happy Birthday Balloon image by Dawn from Fotolia.com

You may have outgrown "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," but birthday parties aren't just for kids. A birthday party gives you the chance to celebrate a milestone in your life with your friends and family, even if you are an adult. Planning the right adult birthday party is a matter of personal taste, whether you prefer a quite dinner party or a big bash with many guests.

Dinner Party

A dinner party at home is a low-key yet memorable grown-up birthday party idea. You can have food catered, or cook up a selection of your favorite dishes. Dinner parties give you the chance to catch up with friends and share your birthday with people close to you. DevineDinnerParty.com suggests party games, such as the "message under plate" dinner table game. Before dinner, write funny phrases on note cards and place them under the plates. For example, "This spaghetti could use some mayonnaise," is a phrase you wouldn't ordinarily use. Each guest tries to incorporate her phrase into the conversation before dinner is over. The person who hasn't used his phrase loses.

If the birthday is one traditionally considered a milestone, such as 21, 30, 40 (usually any 10 year mark), you can incorporate age into the theme of the party. Send invitations letting guests know it's a special birthday and use decorations marked with the milestone age, according to Party411.com. Many party stores have special milestone birthday decorations, or you can make your own.

For a twist on the traditional potluck, have each guest bring a bottle of wine. AdultPartyIdeas.com suggests holding a vote for the best wine at the end of the night. Set up a table to put out all of the wine bottles with wine glasses, wine glass charms, note cards and pens. Each guest can write the name of her favorite wine on a note card, and at the end of the night, the guest who brought the winning wine takes home a prize.

Throwing a themed party gives your guests a chance to dress up and try something new. Examples from AdultPartyIdeas.com include "Black and White Party" and "Movie Party."

For the black and white party, send out black and white invitations instructing guests to wear black, white or black and white outfits, decorate with black and white balloons and streamers and use black and white paper plates, napkins and plastic ware.

For the movie theme, send out invitations shaped like film reels or movie tickets (many party stores have theme-based invitations and decorations), set out bowls of popcorn for guests to snack on (or better yet, theater-style popcorn containers) and decorate with miniature movie screens and printouts of scenes from classic movies glued onto silver paper. For a variation, narrow it down to your favorite movie, use images from that film to decorate, and have guests dress as characters from that movie.