B O Y !
Ahhhh! You guys, it’s a boy!!!
We had our gender reveal party a few weeks ago and I’ve been dying to share the news with you! I didn’t want to wait till the end of the post, I mean, I know you’re here to find out–haha–so wanted to tell you at the very beginning here, and then we can jump into the photos and details of the day.
Let’s start at the beginning…
From the get-go, Marco and I were both on board to find out the gender, if we could, in advance. I had toyed with the idea of throwing a gender reveal party (fun!) but also felt overwhelmed in having to plan one at the same time. I figured if we did one, it would just be a few family members, and a semi-quiet afternoon at our home.
As time went on, our friends started to ask if we were planning to find out the gender (yes), and if we would have a gender reveal. I told them we likely would, but, ‘Didn’t want to force anyone to come to a cheesy party‘.
On the contrary, everyone I mentioned it to was super excited about the idea and wanted to be a part of the day. What we thought might be a small family gathering, turned into a 30+ person event and what would be one of the best days of our life! So many friends and family came out and were just stoked to be a part of it–it was like a smaller version of our wedding, and the excitement and love high was so awesome.
THE MENU
We invited everyone over for a mid-afternoon late lunch and lured them with tacos, margaritas, Filipino food and desserts.
Marco makes these amazing pulled pork carnitas in the slow cooker, and got that going the night before. The morning of was chaotic, cleaning up from the crab boil, the night before and getting everything set up + prepping food for the day, but very exciting too. On the side, we did a big bowl of guacamole and put that out with some chips for guests to snack on upon arrival.
Marco’s mom & aunt brought some amazing Filipino food–noodles, spring rolls, little cakes and more. We didn’t get any photos of the food because we all dove in immediately after the big reveal as we were all so hungry by that point!
For drinks, margaritas are my favourite, and even though I can’t drink them currently, we still wanted our guests to enjoy themselves. I just used a pre-made mix and threw in a bunch of tequila, put a huge bowl of ice with a scoop out, and let our guests serve themselves. We also had a cooler filled with juice boxes (for the kids), Perrier canettes and bottles of beer that was easily accessible. Marco loves to play bartender, so at one point he made a few custom drinks too–hence the photo above, haha!
My girlfriend, owner of Jules Cakes, came through big time with some pretty epic desserts for the table! If you’re in Ottawa, she takes all kinds of dessert orders and is a master in the kitchen. She did custom cupcakes, macarons, meringue and shortbread cookies. I added the donuts (which were a huge hit with the kids that came) and threw the invitation I designed into a frame for the table.
THE REVEAL
When we went to our 20 week ultrasound, we asked the Tech to try and find out the gender, but to not tell us. After lots of patience (and having us look away at certain times 😉 ), she was able to determine the gender. She put the results in a sealed envelope so even we wouldn’t know until the reveal at the party. We tucked the envelope away until party day.
Marco is a huge golfer, and from the get go said he wanted to hit a golf ball that would explode in either pink or blue powder for the reveal. I purchased this two-pack of exploding golf balls in advance (which come marked with a removable pink and blue sticker) for the party.
Once everyone had arrived, grabbed a drink, and socialized for a bit, we asked everyone to head out to the backyard for the big reveal. We called upon our good friend Chantal and gave her both golf balls and the sealed envelope. She went into another other room, opened the envelope, removed the gender-identifying sticker and brought the correct golf ball outside and tee’ed it up for Marco.
Here we go…
It’s a boy!
F21 KIMONO — OLD (SIMILAR, LOVE THIS) | F21 DRESS (SIMILAR, SIMILAR, SPLURGE)
Overall, the day was just great and so super exciting. People were predicting boy or girl and some even wore the colour indicating their vote. Friends who had kids brought them along and the house was buzzing, it was just a really great afternoon.
For the photos, we hired Lisa (our wedding Photographer/blog Photographer) to come for a couple hours to capture the reveal and the details of the party. I knew I’d be too busy running around and that was absolutely the case–I took like, one picture on my phone! It was a busy day so to have these photos are priceless. She captured a bunch of our friends and family arriving, hanging out, kids running around, other details and more, which are just so special to have in general.
For the decor, I was inspired by this picture and wanted to have a place people could take photos. I ended up making the copper arbor (quick trip to Home Depot and a few measurements later…) as I couldn’t find anything online that was less than $300 (yikes!).
The night before, our friends who were over for our annual crab boil helped us blow up all the balloons, and I used this balloon arch tape to secure them together. I had originally wanted navy and blush, but my party store didn’t have navy so I just went with the royal blue–no big deal. It was my first time creating an arch and I can’t believe it actually turned out so well!
The next morning, Marco and I secured it to the arbor (check out my IG Stories today for that video) and it was just the statement piece I was hoping for, and brought in that fun pop of blue and pink.
I created the margarita bar signage, printed it on card stock, and threw it in a frame. I used an acrylic tray to display the glassware to make it look like a bar area (despite just being off the corner of the counter). I plan to use those gold frames in the baby’s room and throw in a couple pictures going forward (maybe one from this party!).
Otherwise we kept everything else neutral, had the pretty dessert table with wood, gold and white elements/dish ware and I tried not to stress too much over decor. I definitely wanted it to look good, but again with just so much going on in general, I tried to keep things as simple as possible 🙂
Hope you girls enjoyed this post, it’s so exciting to bring you along & thank you for your excitement for us too! You can see a video of Marco taking the swing here. This is a big new chapter for us, and I love having you ladies in my ‘village’ <3
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Photography by Lisa Provençal.
