Fun Graduation Party Ideas

I want to share my best graduation party ideas and tips with you.  With four kids, I have hosted my fair share of graduation parties.

For more graduation ideas go here.

I think my best tip is to combine your party with one of your children’s good friends!  One party – two families!  Not only does it make the work load easier, but it makes everyone’s party schedule easier too.  I lost count of how many graduation party invitations my daughter received last year.  Both of my girls had a party with one of their best friends and it worked out great.

Because there were so many people we wanted to include in our party, we decided to host two different parties for my youngest daughters graduation.  One was a party for her high school friends.  This was the joint party.  The second party was for family, neighbors and church friends.  It worked out great and gave use more time to visit with everyone.

Themed Party

I love a themed party so I let Tessa and Rachel brainstorm theme ideas for their party.  With a little help from me they decided on Sail Away since they would soon be sailing away to college.  It was so much fun to plan around.

Sail Away Graduation Party Ideas

Decorations.  We of course went with a nautical look for our Sail Away Theme.  It was about everything red, white and blue!

Cost was kept to a minimum and things were created out of cardboard, chalkboards, shipping palettes, balloons and things I already had.  I did make a fun nautical colored pennant banner for the party.

No party would be complete without food. To keep costs down a bit we did not serve a full meal but no one went hungry.  We had a mixture of sweet and savory with a fun selection of cupcakes and then several different appetizers.  Go here for the complete menu for our graduation party.

The biggest hit of the evening was the Italian Soda Bar.

We also had a s’more bar which was fun too.

The kids had a fun time just visiting, playing badminton, roasting marshmallows, making Italian sodas and taking photos at the photo booth.

Smart Cookie Themed Graduation Party Ideas

For our second party, the one for church friends, family and neighbors we went with a Smart Cookie theme.  I had seen the idea of a milk & cookie party on and thought it would be a fun idea for a graduation party.  And a fairly inexpensive graduation party idea as well.  Since I was doing two parties I really tried to keep the costs down.

Of course there had to be another cute invitation.

We did this party on a Sunday evening and kept the menu simple – cookies and milk!  With the help of a few friends we made over 400 cookies and had 100 guests.  I think I had ten cookies left at the end of the evening.  The favorite cookie of the evening was the Compost Cookie.

Chocolate milk was definitely the biggest hit. I set up a fun cookie bar in the kitchen and people loved it.  Fortunately the weather was good and people had fun milling around in the garden visiting.

People loved drinking out of the little milk bottles with a straw!

I used the Starbucks Frappuccino bottles!  They are perfect.

I used some of my vintage suitcases and other pieces for decoration so set up was easy.  I found some fun graduation quotes to put on my chalkboards.

Both graduation party ideas were a big hit.  Everyone had a great time and I had a blast planning them.  I’m kind of sad there won’t be any more high school graduation parties at my house.

But I’ve got two more college graduations to go and a law school graduation!  Oh and then there is that wedding we are having this summer….

Are you planning a graduation party this year?

For more graduation party ideas check out:

Graduation Party Food

Graduation Party Decor Ideas

Smart Cookie Graduation Party Idea 

• Graduation Gift Ideas
• Graduation Money Leis
• School Colors Chocolate Covered Oreos

Originally posted May 2012