Aunt Mary’s 50th Birthday Surprise Party!

Over the Summer, my family and vendor friends and I were quietly scheming to create the perfect 50th birthday surprise party for my aunt! 🙂 On 9/2, all of our planning and hard work paid off and it was a night that we’ll all never forget!! We held the event at D’Amore in downtown Indy. If you’ve never been there, you MUST go check it out. They have the best view in the whole city!! They’re located on the 48th floor of the Chase Tower and it’s truly amazing!

The party wouldn’t have been the huge hit that it was without the help of ALL of my vendor friends, but especially A Touch of Elegance and Setting the Mood!! We knew that we wanted a purple & gold themed event (Aunt Mary’s favorite colors) and since she owns an upscale dog retreat called the Canine Retreat (click HERE to check it out!) we also knew that we wanted to incorporate dog elements into the design and decor. Jamee Bryant from Setting the Mood came up with incredible ideas and decor and Deborah Bowman & Cassie Smith from A Touch of Elegance made sure that every last detail was perfect! We couldn’t have been happier with how everything turned out that night, it was AWESOME!! They made these adorable menu cards (above) and even glued dog bones to the top of each one. Jamee came up with these adorable centerpieces using dog collars and spray painted dog bones in our color scheme! They even folded the napkins into dog bones!!! I have the coolest friends. 🙂

I loved all of the colored dog bones!

Some of the centerpieces featured elevated tennis balls and Jamee hung “Mary Bone” signs around the room to go along with the milk bone theme! We had a mix of table sizes and heights to create a lot of depth and dimension in the room and incorporated purple and gold floor length linens and chair covers to match the color scheme. I loved the look of the chameleon chairs in there!

Our friend Stephan Koch from the Indiana Ice Studio created a greyhound ice sculpture for the party! Since Aunt Mary has two greyhounds, that seemed fitting! 🙂 Jamee came up with the idea to put “come/sit/stay” window clings against the windows in the north room…loved that! 🙂

My awesome designer, April Foster, designed and created these amazing pocket fold party invitations that were gorgeous!! I saved one and had it framed for Aunt Mary so that she’d have a nice keepsake after the party!

Jamee created this dog house card box for the gift table using a photo of Buddy that I sent her! So cute!!

She also created this sign for the bar to go along with the dog theme! 🙂

We used rolling partitions to create an intimate space and separated the main dining area from the dessert room so that guests would be surprised later on in the evening! The room was filled with photos and over 200 candles to create extra warmth!

The dessert room/lounge…

We found purple throw pillows for the lounge area and Jamee created a dog themed centerpiece for the coffee table!

We had a doggy treat buffet so that guests could take home treats for their four legged friends!! John Mikesell, owner of Izzy’s Place in Carmel helped us out a lot on so many adorable treats for the pups! His store is really cute and he carries all natural, holistic types of foods and treats. Buddy highly approves of his treats! 😉

Doggy treats!!

We also stopped by Three Dog Bakery to pick up some cute mini doggy treats for the buffet! I love how they name their treats with doggy names! 🙂

Super cute!

These were Buddy’s favorite treats from Izzy’s Place!! He gobbled these up! 🙂

Next to the doggy buffet was the candy buffet (for humans!) so guests could take their favorite treats home with them that evening! Jamee did an AMAZING job on both of the buffets! She is so creative! 🙂

Jamee came up with this adorable display idea!!

I love FancyFortuneCookies.com!! We used them for the candy buffet in my office so we decided to create custom fortune cookies for the candy buffet for the party too! 🙂

Karen & Sean Sutton of Holy Cow Cupcakes created these adorable cupcakes for the candy buffet! They were a HUGE hit! (So were the bon bons!) 😉

They also created these eclair cupcakes! YUMMY!

Ilene from Classic Cakes did an AMAZING job on the cake!! She took our invitation and color scheme ideas and ran with it! 🙂 She even created a custom cake topper (dog house) and inserted a photo of Aunt Mary and her 2 pups on top! We LOVED it!

Jamee created custom signs for everything! It all looked amazing!

We decided to have a signature nitro drink that evening, we called it the “Bailey’s Irish Setter” 🙂

Melissa helped side-shoot the event and did a great job for us!! I loved the dog bone/martini glass shot! 🙂

Guests arrived and munched on AMAZING appetizers, listened to great music and had fun in the photo booth while John went to pick up Aunt Mary! If any of you have hired Thomas Caterers for your reception, I highly recommend these appetizers! This is their mozzarella en carrozza with caper mayonnaise…amazing!

We also had Vermont white cheddar cheese and bacon pan-fried sandwiches with tomato and roasted red pepper soup which was equally yummy! Thomas Caterers did a FABULOUS job on the food that night!! The guests were so impressed!

Jeremy Gearries from DJ’s Direct was our awesome DJ for the event! He kept the party going late into the night and everyone had a great time! 🙂 (He even played a few dog-themed songs by request!) 😉

Melissa & Deborah together! 🙂 They watched my cell phone as the texts were rolling in from Aunt Therese and John about their whereabouts that evening…that way, we knew when they were in the building and when to prepare the guests to yell “surprise!” 🙂

Cassie & Jamee together! 🙂 (Cassie had an awesome baby shower a few weeks after Aunt Mary’s party that was also at D’Amore and it’ll be featured on the blog soon too!!)

LOL!! Bob Ridge from IndyVisual was our fabulous videographer for the event and as you can tell, he had a fun time with our photo booth props that night! 🙂

And the guests LOVED the photo booth too!! 🙂 Strike A Pose did a great job that night and we loved the graphics that they came up with for the custom photo designs!

As the sun was setting, we were getting closer to her arrival time!! The view was AMAZING that night!

My dad and sister posed for a quick photo! 🙂

Then it was time to round everyone up for the big moment! We heard the elevator “ding” and when Aunt Mary walked in, everyone yelled “SURPRISE!!!!” and began to sing Happy Birthday! It was the most magical moment of the night, I can’t wait to see it on video! She wasn’t sure what was going on at first but then she saw her best friend, who flew in from Florida for the event, and I captured her reaction…it was PRICELESS! 😀

After all of the shock wore off, we enjoyed a yummy dinner from Thomas Caterers. Guests enjoyed pasta-tinis, a steak and potato station as well as a mini pizza station. Then we enjoyed the DVD photo slideshow that was looped in the south lounge and then it was time to open up the dessert room! 🙂 The cake and candles with the awesome view and city lights made for an incredible photo, definitely one of my favorites!

We also had dessert stations that included these amazing champagne mousse & pop rock push ups as well as blueberry pie lollipops, both were a huge hit!

The amazing pastry artist, Todd Kennedy from Thomas Caterers created these dog face cake pops which were another huge hit! 🙂

Dad & Aunt Therese posed by one of the several photo canvases that were featured throughout the rooms. This one includes Hogan & Ginger, her two Westies! 🙂

Our friends Ryan & Amanda were there that night!

As well as our friends Karen & Sean, owners of Holy Cow, Cupcakes! They just moved into their new location in City Center and if you haven’t been in yet, you MUST stop in! It’s a super cool space and they have all kinds of yummy treats now in addition to their amazing cupcakes!

We had several toasts to Aunt Mary that evening!

Love this 🙂

And this one 🙂

Happy Birthday Aunt Mary!!! 🙂

We had a nitro mint ice cream station for the kids (and adults) 😉 called “Frosty Paws” …another huge hit!

Then Victory Field’s firework show began and you could see it from our dessert room, it was awesome!

The ice sculpture looked really cool with the uplighting at night!

My BFFs, Cassie, Deborah & Jamee!!! 🙂 Hi ladies!!! THANK YOU for your help, you were all amazing!!!

Both of my sisters and my cousin got out and danced a lot that night…I didn’t get the dancing gene! 😉

Aunt Mary opened a few special gifts from our out of town relatives before we all left that evening, I think she was totally surprised and had a great time! 🙂

A few funny details…pooper scoopers and mini fire hydrants in the bathrooms…Jamee thinks of everything! 🙂

Thank you everyone for everything! I know Aunt Mary was so in shock and SO appreciative of everything that you all did for her and it was certainly a night that we’ll all never forget! 🙂

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