Sweet 16 Ideas, anyone?

Question

Hi all :)

I'm planning on having a Sweet 16 this October and I have no idea what I should do. I know for sure that my best friend and I are going to be having it together, though. Do you have any ideas on a theme I could use for my party? Any advice from past experiences and what would you personally like to see at a Sweet 16 party? Any ideas and advice are greatly appreciated!

I LOVE YOU ALL ♥ :D

Answer 1

Some theme ideas:

Birthstone:  You can do the theme in your birthstone, from balloons, tablecloths, napkins, etc.  All decorations, theme, etc.

The year you were born- Have the party theme be the year you were born, music, etc

Favorites-  Make it all about your favorite things, food, music, fashions, etc

Astrological Signs-  Make it all about your sign and decorate in the colors and theme of your sign.

Remember when-  30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, etc,  Pick an era and do an the party on that era.

If you have a favorite hobby that you do, do the party theme around that.

If you play a sport, do the party around that sport.

A Night in Tuscany

Under the Tuscan Sun

Masquerade Ball

Morraccan theme

Monochromatic Theme-  Pick you favorite color and do the colors and theme in tones of that color.  So if your favorite color is purple, decorate and do it in tones of light to dark purple

Pick one or two colors and do that, like black and white, pink and white, etc.

Sweets and Treats-  Candy, Ice cream, sweets and treats!

We're Kids Again!-  Do all the fun things you did as kids and make the theme around that, musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey, make it just like the kids' parties from the past!

Hawaiin Laua

Hollywood

Fairy Tales

Disney

Under the moon and stars

Hippies

Formal sit down dinner

Around the World

Carnival

Fun and Games

Alice and Wonderland

Tea Party

Asian

Parisian

Octoberfest

Beach Party

Any TV show

Cartoons or characters

Safari/zoo

Bubbles

Under the Sea

Winter Wonderland

Broadway

Music

Rock and Roll

I hope some of these ideas help and that you and your friend have a great party and a very Happy Sweet 16!!

Answer 2

We had a dance and rented a hall but you can save money by looking for a recreation area in your area and checking your local parks, however in our area there were too many rules, so we had a hard time found a hall. The parks required security to be hired for teens and I live in the burbs in the midwest. You have to ask if you can decorate and about the food. A lot of places require you to use a caterer which can be expensive and wont even let you bring in your own cake, so you have ask. We were not able to use tape only sticky tac and usually no one lets you use confetti.

We hired a DJ. It is 100 bucks an hour. Make sure you ask if they supply lights and make sure they have a microphone. They should have those 2 things and make your DJ a list of the songs you want played and dont forget to include an entrance song if there is one and happy birthday if you want that one. Include group fun songs like electric slide or whatever is popular now.

Pick a day not around a holiday because a lot of people do family stuff around holidays and Sunday mornings are for church so avoids that. Also it is about 1/2 the price if you have your party on a Sunday evening compared to a saturday. We rented a large hall for 500.00 on Sunday for a party from 6-10. That way all we had to do was serve appetizers and not a full meal, because also you have birthday cake in that time. You have to ask how much time they will give you extra to decorate before your actual event and if you will be charged extra for that. Some bowling alleys have cheaper rooms to rent and you dont have to bowl, it is separate from that. Also some restaurants have party rooms, where you can decorate and dance but you order from their menu for your friends. Probably cheaper than a hall.

For food we had a veggie tray, cheese tray, taco dip and chips, fruit tray and we had silver dollar sandwiches. The veggie tray was barely touched. The cheese tray was 1/2 touched. The taco dip was very popular and had to be restoocked twice. The fruit tray went well too. The silver dollar sandwiches were perfect, hand size and everyone liked them. http://www.homelandstores.com/services/p... The hall we rented from required us to use their caterer but you can make these yourself. I saw the buns at the store the other day and the recipes are simple.

For invites you can buy the cheap ones like this: http://www.partycheap.com/Awards_Night_I... or get personalized ones like this that we ordered. They were only 1 buck a piece and came with already stuffed in an envelope with your return address on it and a portion of the purchase went to charity: We http://www.handykaneweddings.com/index.c... We titled ours Sixteen Candles. They have other hollywood ones also. Make sure you put on the invite the dress code. We said black/white semi-formal and the birthday girl and her date wore formal, gowns and tux to stand out. Usually only 1/2 the people you invite will be able to come, especially teens because a lot of people work and in the summer a lot of ppl go on family vacations.

For decorations to start off you have to have a sign in board. A board your friends sign as they arrive. We bought a board like this at Walgreens or you can get one at any office supply place.: http://www.walgreens.com/store/product.j... We left the center white. The outer 2 folds we covered with red gift wrap from the dollar store. We put a red scalloped border around the outer 2 folds we got at the dollar store : http://www.teacherstorehouse.com/product... Around the center we put film strip border: http://www.partycheap.com/Filmstrip_Bord... We bought silver glitter letters from the craft store: http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?C... and we wrote SIGN IN centered at thet top of the center of the board in the white section. We attached them with double sided tape dots from the craft store. We bought 2 of these hollywood scrapbook pages at the craft store and put them at the bottom of the outer folds and randomly around the board: http://www.dreamcraftstore.co.uk/acatalo...

So the middle is left blank for pple to sign and the outer folds that are red get covered with a collage of pictures of the birthday person. We also bought a page with palm trees and sweet 16 and put them randomly on there too.

Our colors were gold, black and silver.

We had large round tables, 8 of them. We bought black tablecloths from the dollar store but bought these beautiful gold overlays: http://www.efavormart.com/index.asp?Page... For centerpieces we used these: http://www.partycheap.com/Movie_Set_Clap... We also had on the table a balloon weight like this but we found them in gold and black: http://www.partycheap.com/Blue_Metallic_... We attached black, gold and silver latex balloons helium filled and one hollywood balloon: http://www.partycheap.com/Hollywood_Part... I also bought black and gold cut out stars and placed these randomly on the table for a punch of color like these. I paid a dime a piece at a craft store: http://www.ozpartyshop.com.au/products.p... You can also hang these from the ceiling for an extra effect. Also on the table we made tent cards for flash cameras: You can use any word processor. I inserted a movie camera clip art. I put Nicoles sweet 16 and then worded the card like this but for a birthday: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?lis... We got the cameras at Aldi food store for 2.99 a piece. We bought a total of 60 balloons, gold, black and silver. We had 8 tables and made the arrangements as I said above. We made the same arrangements ands put 2 around the opening of the hall, 2 on the cake table, 2 around the DJ table and a few others randomly. We bought these 30 inch balloons to put around the dance floor: http://www.partycheap.com/Hollywood_Clap...

We bought move star standups, marilyn monroe for the hollywood theme but we also got paris hilton for the teens which went over really well for picture taking, especially the boys. We got these for 23 bucks a pc on ebay new and they combine shipping if you buy 2 so you save money: http://cgi.ebay.com/Marilyn-Monroe-Red-G...

We bought these huge hollywood signs: http://www.andersonsprom.com/p-18782-mov... 56x35. You cant really see how it is. It is actually like an A frame. It comes with another black cardboard backing and these rods that you are supposeed to hot glue together so it is like an A-frame or like a tent to stand up. You have to assemble this. All 3 pictures come on 1 long roll or poster. You have to cut it in 3 and then they give you an exact knife to cut around the edges. It was not that hard and this tape that sticks it on. Well we found that you dont need to make the a-frame because you can bend them ever so slightly in the center and they stand up fine. They give you the sparkly foil stars to glue on (not hot glue) .4 for each picture, 4 lg and 4 small. So we decided not to make the A frame so we had 3 extra large pieces of black cardboard, the same sizes these pictures are on. So we went to Target and bought 3 more posters, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and James Dean. We used the rest of the tape we had and put them on there and we put 2 lg and 2 small stars on all six of these. They all stand up just fine so by doing these we got 6 huge decoration pieces for only 90 bucks. We go so many compliments on them.

This went in the middle of the dance floor: http://www.partycheap.com/Star_Peel_N_Pl... We also bought hollywood decocrations to put randomly around the room from party cheap. We got move cutouts, hollywood street signs, walk of fame door fringe, etc.

For favors We bought organza favor bags at the same place we got the table overalys in black and gold: We got clipboard keychains, movie buttermints, black and gold beads which we handed to guests as they arrived and personalized star trophies that we put a friend quote on at oriental trading really cheap.  We bought sweet 16 lollipop mold and used pink chocolate from andy store. The bags are 1.99 for 100 with ties (you can use these as favor bags as well). It was 1.50 for 3 bags of chocolate and we made 27 lollipops. Dont forget to buy sticks.

This red carpet from party cheap was fine but check the length and it has a stick tape and bring adhesive remover with your as it leaves a sticky line where the tape is.

Answer 3

For my sweet 16 I had a black and white ball. I requested that everyone wear black and white and all my decorations where black and white but I wore red. My center pieces were top hats filled with black and white roses with silver balloons. It was really elegant. My other option was a masquerade ball like from Phantom of the Opera. But you have to remember that it will be your friends from high school and a lot of the time they can't spend a lot of money on really fancy masks and dresses. A friend of mine had a Las Vegas themed sweet 16 and all of the tables had decorations with the themes of different Vegas hotels like the Stratosphere and Caesar's Palace She used a lot of playing cards and dice in her decorations. Good luck! I hope your party will be great!