<p>Dd turns 16 in August, she is a girly girl. Doesnt necessarily like to be the center of attn. but has hinted she would like a sweet 16 party. A surprise would be fun but I am interested in all ideas!</p>
<p>My D had a Costume party with DJ at catering restaurant, non traditional and was fun. Other possibilities is a high tea party at a tea place. Since it is summertime, how about a pool and barbecue party.</p>
<p>Sweet 16s run the gamut. How extreme (or not) are you wanting to go? I saw a reality show on this subject. A Dad is discussing the party with his 16 y/o. He says “we need to talk about budget.” The daughter replied “Uh, we’re not having a budget. Got it?” Dad says, “Sigh…Okay.” </p>
<p>WOW. I turned the TV off at that point…</p>
<p>Agree that things like budget, number of guests, etc are needed before ideas can come. After watching MTV, some Sweet 16 parties cost more than a year of college. Last year DS went to a Sweet 16 where the parents rented 4 buses to take kids to amusement park and had entertainers on bus, etc. B-Day girl came home to new car (which she couldn’t drive for another 6 months. </p>
<p>DS Sweet 16 was a barbeque and cornhole tournament in our backyard. No car, no bike, but new computer laptop.</p>
<p>I think for oldest i paid for her and a couple friends to take a trail ride.
Youngest attended aparty which is more what you are probably thinking about.
A small group of her friends had a tea party for one of their 16th bd.
They made the tea sandwiches, cakes etc before hand, & had it in the garden on fine china.
Really agreat time!
If you have more money to spend you could always go to a tea shop, but the girls had fun putting it together themselves.</p>
<p>For my D’s 11th or 12th birthday, I had a lunch and movie party for her that could be used for a sweet 16 party. There was a nice Italian restaurant right next to a movie theater. I visited the restaurant ahead of time and arranged for appetizers and entrees and a large table. (You could add some table decorations.) They also served the birthday cake I provided. Then after lunch and presents, the girls went on to the movie together. I paid for the movie tickets. It was a lovely party and easy for me! I think you could arrange it as a surprise if the girls could keep quiet about it.</p>
<p>Thanks for your replies - am tempted to do pool party for August, almost always 90 on her birthday, also love the tea party… that would be fun 
She doesnt want a huge group, probably a dozen or so girls. She also wont want presents, maybe I can combine birthday party with a service project… but keep it fun?!</p>
<p>Older D wanted about the same number of guests (a dozen or so) and had hers at a teppanyaki place, then back to our house for cake.</p>
<p>For graduation, we had an ice cream sundae/pool party. We bought 4 kinds of ice cream and the adults served that in the house. Outside by the pool we had just about every type of topping in existence, so the kids could create their own sundaes. It was a hit.</p>
<p>Please reconsider the “surprise”. When my own D was 16 she was not invited to a Sweet 16 party for a girl she was very good friends with at school because the girl’s mom didn’t know her and the other girl helping to plan the party didn’t want to invite her. Her friend wondered why D didn’t show up. It was pretty awkward to say the least. In addition there was a mixup with the girl who was supposed to take the birthday girl to the mall during party set up and that didn’t go well, either.</p>
<p>I suggest that you plan it together with your D. That way you can coordinate on the guest list and other details. And she has the fun of looking forward to the party as well!</p>
<p>This is what I did for my 2 girls. For the oldest, I catered a formal dinner party. I actually was going to have a friend cater it but at the last minute, he got sick so I hit the grocery store and found all kinds of easy to serve prepared foods. It was a multi-course dinner. The kids all came dressed up. It wasn’t a very large party since they all had to fit around my dinner table (there were about 10 kids). </p>
<p>For my other daughter, I also hosted a dinner, but this party had a murder mystery theme. This is the one we used (<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/How-Host-Murder-Grapes-Frath/dp/1878875051[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/How-Host-Murder-Grapes-Frath/dp/1878875051</a> ) but there are many out there. Each guest came in costume as a specific character in the ‘play’. This party was a huge success and I hope to do another one in the future. The kids talked about it for a long time afterward. </p>
<p>If your daughter would prefer a no - gifts party, then simply note that in the invite. Her closest friends will probably still want to give her a gift as an expression of their friendship, but they can simply be put aside and opened later.</p>
<p>My daughter gathered up a handful of her closest friends (and I mean literally a handful- there were four or five) and we took a road trip to Great Wolf Lodge. I got a two bedroom suite and took one room (and had a friend join me who lives nearby) and the girls took the other bedroom and pull out sofa. They had a BLAST. They were running around with wands playing MagiQuest and enjoying the water park, painting nails and laughing etc. We stayed two nights. I had brought homemade sweets and treats like soda, chips and cake balls. </p>
<p>It was really fun and a real treat for ALL the girls. They loved it and are talking about a repeat trip instead of Senior Week.</p>
<p>@bookreader, My D would love to do the murder mystery themed party. We started to look into it last year, but so many of the reviews seemed to say the game wasn’t appropriate for teens (apparently alot of those games have the characters hooking up with each other as part of the story). I will check out the one you mentioned. Did you find it appropriate for teens? (I think the problem might not be so much that there are PG-13 themes, but the awkwardness that it might bring in some groups of friends/family. lol</p>
<p>My sister is now in her 50’s but when she was a preteen, she read a book (Donna Parker, maybe?) where they hung sugar cubes from the ceiling on a sweet 16th birthday to decorate the room. Of course, we did that for her. A 90 year old neighbor made a “doll” cake, where you buy a plastic doll from an iparty store, and put it in the center of a cake, decorating the cake as a dress. These may be old-fashioned, but sometimes the old ideas are the best. For my sweet 16, I found a lipstick (color -KISS), Sweet 16 and never been kissed?</p>
<p>Shoboemom,</p>
<p>I will admit that this is a bit of a problem. I will admit that I didn’t preread the story because I wanted it to be a surprise for me as well as the guests. Well, turned out that some of the characters were rather seedy. I recall a brothel owner, a child born out of wedlock, alcoholic and some other unsavory characters. </p>
<p>I’m glad that I hadn’t preread it because maybe I wouldn’t have done the party and in the end, it really was a very fun party. The kids all handled the ‘characters’ quite well and handled it very well. </p>
<p>I do agree however, that it is a bit of a problem and I think that some of the stories are worse (in terms of the seediness of the plot) than others. The one we used wasn’t too terrible. I found out later that some were much worse. The one we used was old - it came with cassettes instead of a CD (gotta love garage sales!) - so that may be why it wasn’t too bad. </p>
<p>I will say that the teens at this party all came from pretty conservative homes but not one parent said anything to me. I think that this was largely due to the fact that the kids didn’t make much of the seedy characters and instead focused on how much fun this kind of party was. It was certainly different for them and they loved having something different to do and it was great fun for them to have a reason to do dress up (they had to come dressed as their character).</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. Love the murder mystery … wondering if I can request a teen friendly version?! We are a pretty conservative family. Also, there will be no boys at the party, that might be an issue for the MM party?</p>
<p>I was also thinking about the surprise, maybe I shouldnt - I may leave someone out. :0</p>
<p>So, will have a conversation w dd, she will help me plan it.</p>
<p>The murder mysteries that I’ve seen have male and female characters. In my daughters situation, one of the girls came as a male character. No biggie - but that is how we handled it as there were 10 roles: 5 male and 5 female but our guest list did not exactly match that (4 boys and 6 girls). </p>
<p>There may be teen friendly versions out there. I was using what I had. I was naive to think that there wouldn’t be any very seedy characters but in the end, I can say that it all worked out fine. No harm done. :-)</p>
<p>Just found this website with all-female mysteries galore, as well as the ratings for mature, teen or everyone.
Of couse, I cant vouch for quality
[Murder</a> Mystery Games](<a href=“http://www.host-party.com/viewallmysteries.asp]Murder”>http://www.host-party.com/viewallmysteries.asp)</p>
<p>Am I the only mother of girls that didn’t have and really don’t want to have a sweet 16 party for my girls ?</p>
<p>^ I offered to have a party for D, but she didn’t want one :(</p>
<p>lje, my “sweet 16” was a group of my friends (mostly guys, I think there might have been 1 or 2 girls there) going to see our local hockey team and then coming over for pizza, pop, movies, sleepover, etc. I had zero interest in having anything beyond that. Not my style.</p>