Two months ago, we were looking at flights to Canada in preparation for our April 5th birthday turn-up. Little did we know that in a matter of weeks Ms. Corona was going to come through and literally stop the world in its tracks. Aries season was officially canceled!
After we faced the unfortunate reality that a destination celebration wasn’t happening this year, we decided to plan a small, intimate, brunch with 4 or 5 close friends. While planning the brunch, the governor of Georgia announced the shelter in place order, which completely shut down that idea. Disappointed, we accepted the fact that our annual birthday celebration was most likely not going to happen.
During the first few days of quarantine, artists, entrepreneurs, and other creatives started hosting virtual events and concerts to help people deal with social distancing. We attended an online event called Pajamas and Lipstick by Necole Kane (founder of XO Necole), which gave us the idea to throw a virtual birthday party.
Since the party was going to be virtual, we had to think of innovative ways to keep our guests engaged and entertained. The viral #dontrushchallenge has been all over social media, so we decided to do our own version of the challenge to promote our party. Next, we set up a virtual party room on Zoom and created e-vites along with an itinerary that we sent to our guests. The event was exclusive so you couldn’t join unless you knew the ID and secret password.
The night of the party, we ordered takeout, bought dessert from Cami Cakes, and grabbed a bottle of wine. At 8 pm we set up our computers and the party was on! The celebration started with a pregame session to eat, drink, and catch up. The night also included convo sessions. We talked about maintaining while being quarantined, life, and how dating and relationships have been affected while being on lockdown. We put together a twin trivia game so guests could compete on who knew us better. Guests also got a chance to share their favorite memories of us. The icing on the cake was having Briar Blakely (former contestant from the Voice) drop in at the end to sing happy birthday before we blew out our candles. We all raised glasses to toast to a new unique chapter in our lives. I wouldn’t say it was the best birthday thus far, but it was definitely the most memorable. It felt amazing to feel so much love and to reconnect with old and new friends even though we were miles apart.
