If you’re a graduating senior, chances are: you’re ready to celebrate. I’m completing my first year at the University of Georgia & allow me to give you some insight about graduation parties. You stand there in your pretty little outfit while your friends and family come up to you and ask all the annoying, tough, and repetitive questions (if you’re a second semester senior, chances are: you already know what those are.

However: The celebration of your transition from high school student to college does NOT have to be boring, expensive, and it sure as hell doesn’t have to be just like everybody else’s.

Luckily for you all, I had the opportunity to have two very different graduation parties so I have plenty of ideas, inspo, and insight to give.

PARTY 1: TRADITIONAL BRUNCH

My second party is what I believe to be the most common style of graduation party.

My more conservative & traditional graduation party. These parties aren’t really about the activities and interaction, they’re more of an expensive photo-op where you show off your cutest baby photos, provide food, music, and these require a LOT of talking and hosting.

My first piece of advice is: be weary of the weather, hold your party at a place where your guests can choose whether they want to be indoors or outdoors.

The worst thing you can do during the month of May is force everyone to sit outside with their plates and mingle until they eventually get hot and bored and go on to someone else’s party.

On my table

Your table will be your favorite part of your party because it’ll be all about you. In order to make mine unique, we used faux branches to create a photo tree. Since I was going to UGA, we wanted lots of red so we had red roses, a bowl of red apples and a UGA tee to make the aesthetic casual.
We had custom UGA cookies made (these were a hit), a baseball cap, some of my favorite awards, and my guest book. (Having your guest book at your table actually makes people go and look at it.)

Have a creative way of allowing people to give you insight, advice and encouraging words.

This will eliminate some of the lecturing from adults at your party. Not that lectures are bad, but you’ll find EVERYBODY has advice to give at your grad party. Everyone has a guest book where you write your name and a little note. On my table, I had Dr. Suess’s “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” laying front and center in place of a traditional guest book. Everyone drew funny doodles, wrote me notes or encouragement or just their names. I have kept this book in my room to this day.

FOOD

To keep things cheap (and fun), we had a “donut cake” with a rose themed cake at the top. The donuts fit our color scheme and were gone by the end of the party.
We also had candy jars with cute little graduation sayings. The jar of tootsie rolls said “honor rolls” Kit Kats said “study breaks” Hershey kisses said “goodbye kisses” and dum dums said “so long suckers!”
We also had lunch provided through our chosen venue.

Memory Jars

**We had a separate table for our own personal memory jars where everyone wrote their favorite memory with each of us.** Please, please, please have these at your party. You will love reading through all of the fun memories everyone has with you. It’ll also keep your guests busy for a while. These don’t have to be memories, you can always do “Advice for the Graduate” or “Your favorite thing about the Graduate.” You just want your guests to have some direction for what they write.

PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES!!!!

Find the best lighting at your party & set up selfie central. We kept it simple by putting fairy lights on the wall with gold balloons from party city that had our grad year (2018), and people spent the majority of their time at our party standing there.

Party 2: Gradchella

This party was more my style - less traditional, and in every sense of the word a PARTY! If you’re going for more of a fun party than a traditional brunch then this type of party is for you. Gradchella was my music festival themed graduation party, and one of the most fun nights of my life. We held this party at my house (no venue - less $$$), and I invited only my closest friends and family which meant no small talk, no repetitive questions, and no pressure. Everyone dressed as if they were attending a music festival. From pink hair to face jewels to prints on prints. That made for lots and lots of photo ops.

Entertainment:

We had a DJ outside, and Karaoke inside the house. This made for lots of dancing and singing which isn’t typical of a grad party and the guests loved it. The guests watched sports, ate, mingled, sang, danced, wrote in the guest book, or took photos in their Coachella themed outfits.

Decor

Inside we had piñatas shaped like dollar bills with our faces on them for people to drop their cards in.

Quick Ways To Spice Up Your Grad Party