Gender reveal parties have become a staple in the stages of modern-day pregnancies. The forthcoming baby is, of course, joy enough, but creatively revealing the gender of the baby can add a lot of mystery and fun to the process. As the time grows closer, the excitement of not knowing builds. Sometimes, believe it or not, bets are made! In this social media age of photo-staging, though, whoever is responsible for the reveal has to be creative enough to impress the partygoers as well as extended friends of the family on Facebook, Instagram, and so on.
The concept of the gender reveal party began in 2008 when blogger Jenna Karvunidis posted about a party she had where the baby’s gender was revealed. The bump.com shared the post, and the rest is history.
Aside from deciding how to reveal the gender, the parents have to also decide who is to know the gender beforehand. Some parents decide to know ahead of time and reveal the secret themselves. Others decide to be in on the anticipatory fun and choose a close family friend to know the secret ahead of time. That close friend, then, plans the reveal.
Over the subsequent 12 years, parents, or those friends, have created some interesting and fun, imaginative ideas to let everyone know what gender their baby will be. So, we’ve collected some of those great ideas here. Hopefully, if you have no idea what to do, these ideas will help. If you do have some ideas of your own? Maybe this list can at least enhance.
1. Cake Reveal
The cake reveal is probably the most used gender reveal idea, and it is pretty simple. Bake a cake with blue or pink cake batter, then cover it with an ambiguously colored frosting. When the partygoers cut into the cake, the color inside reveals the gender of the baby, based on blue for boy or pink for girl.
Sticking with the cake reveal, some people alternately cut out a hole in the center of the baked cake, before frosting it, and fill the hole with blue or pink candies.
2. Gender Reveal Boxes
Fill a box, which can be wrapped as a present, with pink or blue helium-filled balloons. When the expecting parents open the box, the baby-to-be’s gender gets revealed as the balloons float out.
3. Balloon Pop
For this fun reveal, you get a balloon and fill it with pink or blue confetti. With the balloon blown up using helium, waiting mysteriously to be popped at your gender reveal party, all you have to do is pop the balloon. The pink or blue confetti will fall out, revealing to all the impatiently waiting guests what the baby will be. For added flare, you can purchase black balloons with question marks on them specifically designed for gender reveal parties.
4. Candle Reveals
Some places sell special candles which produce blue or pink flames. The cool thing about this is that the reveal isn’t quick. The candles take a while before their flames turn colors. The wait allows for the anticipation to grow!
5. Smoke Bomb
This idea is fun and dramatic. With friends and family gathered, preferably outside, the parents release a smoke bomb. The smoke that comes out is either blue or pink.
Some car enthusiasts even set this one up where the smoke comes out of their mufflers. When they rev up, pink or blue comes out of the exhaust.
Continuing with the car theme, you can also get tire burnout packs of powder that, when your car/truck does a burnout on the pack, the gender-revealing smoke will come out.
6. Confetti Cannons
Confetti cannons shoot confetti high into the air. For gender reveal parties, parents shoot blue or pink confetti, letting everyone know what gender the baby is that they’ll be having.
As an alternative that everyone could do, you could hand out confetti poppers. When popped, they’d shoot out blue or pink confetti. Just make sure no over-anxious guest pops their early!
7. Reveals for Sports Fans
Let’s say the parents-to-be are sports fans. If so, they can take their beloved sport and add it into their reveal. Footballs, baseballs, soccer balls, golf balls, and more can all be purchased with blue or pink powder in them. When kicked, or hit, the balls release the powder.
8. Pinatas
Much like kids at a birthday party where hitting a pinata gives the eager kids candy, pinatas can be used at gender reveal parties. The soon-to-be-parents can take whacks at the pinata. When it finally bursts open, not only does the candy come out, but that candy is specifically colored revealing the gender.
9. Gender Reveal Pictures
For this reveal, the parents-to-be take a fun pregnancy photo that shows what gender the baby will be. In the picture, the parents can present something pink or blue in creative ways. They can blow pink or blue bubbles in bubble gum, paint the baby bump pink or blue, throw pink or blue confetti, hold pink or blue balloons, or holding “it’s a girl” or “it’s a boy” clothing. You get the idea. This reveal doubles as a keepsake pregnancy portrait and also serves to let friends and family who aren’t local know the news via posting the picture on social media.
10. Scratch-off Cards
With Scratch-off cards, every partygoer receives a scratch-off card. When the time comes for the reveal, they each scratch off the card to see if the baby will be a girl or a boy.
Let’s say you’re not having just one kid, what if you’re having twins or more? This just ups the ante on the possibilities of fun. Pending multiples parents can reveal each kid with their separate, or same, colors. However, and I wish I’d known about this trend at the time of our pregnancy, you could even reveal the fact that you’re having multiples! Can you imagine everyone’s surprise as they see two, or more, reveals instead of just one? That’d be epic.
Party favors don’t have to stop at just the reveal ideas. You can theme the whole gender reveal party. To make it fun, and escalate the excitement of the big mystery, theme everything else along with the big question. For example, Hershey’s makes candy bar wrapper printouts that you can add over their candy bars which spell out their name as either HerSHEy’s in pink or HersHEy’s in blue. As another example, in a recent episode of the show Last Man Standing, they served both hot dogs and tacos for the Hors d'oeuvres! So, essentially then, the party can be as tasteful or tasteless as you want it to be.
People can wear themed clothing even. Some show up in what they expect, or want, the kid to be wearing “Team Pink” or “Team Blue” shirts. Sometimes, as with Last Man Standing’s example above, tasteless can be funny. So, there are of course shirts with statements like “I’m just here for the sex” for guests and “Thanks for coming to our sex party” for the parents.
No matter what you choose to do for the big reveal, what food you server, or what you wear, gender reveal parties are supposed to be fun and can be part of the baby shower or separate. The fun these parties bring gets family and friends together. They also get everyone excited about the baby, or babies, to come.
Be sure to check out our other Parenting Tips.