Today is my mom’s 60th birthday! We were lucky enough to celebrate it earlier in the month with a long weekend away at an airbnb cabin. It was a backup to a cancelled week long trip that was supposed to be with the bigger extended family aka all my mom’s siblings plus a few cousins. So since it was a make-up to something to be much bigger, I wanted to really make sure my mom had a special weekend – celebrating her!

To make this weekend special for my mom’s big 60th birthday, there were a few things I focused on to help bring the birthday party to the cabin in the woods. One of those things was decorations! Luckily, this is a cabin we’ve stayed at before, so I had a pretty good feel for the space and the decorations I wanted to get to decorate the space. The second thing was bringing the people to the party – virtually of course! And lastly was the sweet treats and having a special cake to help make a statement for 60.

Virtual Birthday Wishes. With the world of COVID, things are definitely different — and since this much larger family trip wasn’t happening, I wanted to surprise my mom and bring her well wishes from her family and friends! DISCLAIMER: If anyone has mastered this craft, please comment below with help — but I’m not sure if there is any easy way to reach out to over 40 people asking for them to share a recorded video wish. For some people I reached out via email, Facebook messenger, text messages and Instagram DMs. I gathered videos, pictures and well wishes and even sourced a variety of pictures and memories of mom’s life and put them into an iMovie — it ended up being about a half hour long and was so fun making and even better surprising and watching my mom watch it.

The Decorations. As I mentioned, I knew the space but I also wanted to rein myself in, because I can easily go overboard with everything. So I think I did a pretty good job at keeping it simple! I picked the little theme of ’60 & Fabulous’ and kept on the color theme of gold and white. My big statement was getting oversized gold 6-0 balloons, a party pack that included a large Happy Birthday banner and other fun pieces that could be used throughout the cabin. In order to blow up the balloons at the cabin, I brought a mini helium tank from Michael’s — it was perfect for filling up the balloons. In addition to the birthday decorations, I also made sure to bring a few pieces from home to give it a homey and polished feel like table runners, candle holders, a cake stand, fresh flowers, matching plates and placemats.

The Sweets! Another super easy way to help create a statement and make your birthday queen feel special is ordering a fancy cake! Of course, I went with our go-to special occasion local cake place; Kelsey Elizabeth Cakes (KEC) — we had our wedding cake done there and ever since, those cakes have held a special place in our hearts and is our go-to. I went with a 6″ Retro Dot buttercream cake, we got the Vanilla Blackberry flavor, and I was also able to pick out the colors, so I picked mom’s favorites! I also ordered a mini Reese’s party cake, because it’s delicious and my dad’s birthday is also in September so we gave him a little treat too! My dad also coordinated getting chocolate peanut butter cupcakes from a local baker near them, Morgy Cakes — he organized everything from the pick-up, to the flavor, to the design — it was so sweet and they were delicious. We made sure to have fun gold glittery 6-0 candles and tall skinny white and gold candles for mom to make an early birthday wish!

Since we were there for almost three nights, we had coordinated our meals between our two households, and had no shortage of food! We also made sure to plan a special dinner for Mom’s official birthday dinner which included steaks and a delicious sweet potato grilled dish (will share recipe!) — we also made a few epic charcuterie boards that served as our dinner at least one of the nights as we listened to music, chatted, played games and drank the nights away. My brother, SIL and niece also made it in for the trip, which I know was extra special for my mom — especially having all of us under one roof, which hasn’t been like that since Thanksgiving!

It was a super fun and exhausting weekend — and I know my mom loved every moment of it and now she gets to have a nice and relaxing day for her actual birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom!