party prep

Getting ready for this party was difficult. Usually when I'm planning anything like this I run everything by Justin, I really value his opinion. But, since this party was a surprise that avenue was closed to me. I'm also pretty horrible at being sneaky and I'm a terrible liar-

it really was a miracle that Justin was surprised at all.

Justin has lived quite a colorful life and has a ton of stories so I thought a "roast" party would be perfect for him. I started e-mailing family and friends, co-workers and old mission buddies. I asked everyone to send me old stories and memories of Justin and after a few days the e-mails started pouring in. Believe me, when it comes to Justin, everyone has a tale to tell.

I was lying in bed one night when the idea came to me to type out a few condensed versions of the more well-known stories from Justin's life to use as party favors. I figured it would give people something to read and talk about before we got there as well as grease the wheels for some great story telling. The next day I started making 40 cards as well as taking the image above and making a pin to clip to the party favors. This is what they looked like:

It wasn't as difficult to come up with 40 different funny stories about Justin as it should have been. These are a few of my favorites:

They turned out to be really helpful at the party- everyone had questions for Justin regarding the place cards and as we went around the table if someone couldn't think of anything they could just read their card and ask Justin about it. Even the staff at the restaurant loved them- one waiter was telling everyone how funny it was that we all had Justin's face pinned to our shirts and another waiter asked Justin if he could read all the cards as he was clearing our tables.

The only other decoration that I prepared for the party was inspired by this picture of old celebrity roasts from the Dean Martin Show:

I really wanted to get a huge "Man of the Hour" Poster with Justin's face for the party.

This is what I came up with:

As the party came closer I debated about spending the money to have the picture blown up and the hassel of picking it up from the print shop without Justin finding out. But in the end I was so glad I did it- it was one of my favorite things about the party and Justin says that he's going to frame it and hang it in his office.

Tune in tomorrow for pictures of the party.