Celebrating My Father-In-Law’s 70th & Tips and Inspiration for Hosting a Backyard Party

There is something that feels incredibly adult about planning your father-in-law’s 70th birthday party. I’m not sure when I became the person ordering cloth napkins and having opinions about bamboo chargers, but apparently, here we are!

The truth is, I love this kind of thing. Give me a reason to gather people around a table, a theme to work with, and an excuse to make a Canva board, and I am very happy. My biggest challenge is usually not coming up with ideas—it’s knowing when to stop.

And for this party, I really am trying to stop.

We’re celebrating in September, which is already such a full month for our family. School is back in session, church ministry is in full swing, and everything seems to be moving at once. So while I want this birthday to feel really special, I’m also reminding myself that special does not have to mean elaborate.

The goal: a warm, simple backyard dinner that feels like him.

The Inspiration

My father-in-law loves Italian food, so that gave me an easy starting point for the evening. We’re doing a big Italian spread with baked sausage rigatoni, salad, and garlic bread for dinner.

For appetizers, I’m keeping things especially simple with an antipasti spread—marinated olives, focaccia from Trader Joe’s, and a few other easy things for people to snack on while everyone arrives.

The day before the party, I’ll make a Trader Joe’s run for fresh flowers and arrange them in vases I already own for the tables. No complicated florals. No special-order centerpieces. Just grocery-store flowers in pretty vessels.

At least, this is what I keep telling myself. 🙂

A Few Personal Details

One of my favorite projects for the party is a giant 70 made from foam board from Dollar Tree. I’m covering the numbers in black-and-white family photos that I had printed through Walmart Photo. It’s inexpensive, personal, and exactly the kind of decoration I love because we’ll actually want to stand around and look at it.

I also printed a large 2-by-3-foot welcome poster for the entrance. I mounted it onto foam board so it will be sturdy enough to sit on an easel and greet everyone as they come into the yard.

And then there are the wine bottles! I’m making custom labels with his photo and the words “Vintage 1956” to put on bottles of wine for the tables. It’s just silly enough for a 70th birthday without turning the entire party into an “over the hill” theme.

Setting the Tables

This party also gave me an excuse to finally buy something I’ve been wanting for a while: reusable outdoor dinnerware.

We’re borrowing round tables and linens from our church, but I went ahead and purchased plastic dishes and outdoor silverware from Target. They were technically being marketed for college students, but they feel surprisingly substantial, and I think we’ll use them for backyard dinners and parties for years.

Even better, the plates were under $3 each and the silverware was around $2.50 per set. Since those are pieces we can reuse, I felt much better about buying them rather than purchasing disposable plates and utensils just for one evening.

To dress everything up a little, I ordered bamboo chargers, wood napkin rings, and cloth napkins. The combination feels special enough for a milestone birthday but still relaxed enough for dinner in the backyard.

And because I am apparently incapable of simply imagining what a table might look like, I mocked the entire thing up in Canva first.

Was that necessary? Absolutely not. Did I enjoy every second of it? Yes! And it gave me confidence that I was making the right purchases throughout the process.

Dessert Is Where We’re Having Fun

For dessert, we’re doing both birthday cake and ice cream.

I ordered a custom cake from Sam’s Club, which may be one of my favorite party discoveries. The cake was only around $17, and I was able to customize the flowers, colors, and writing. For a big milestone birthday cake, that feels like such a win.

Alongside it, we’re setting up a simple ice cream bar. I bought sundae glasses and little cone-shaped bowls, and we’ll put out ice cream and toppings so everyone can make their own.

Again: easy, nostalgic, and fun without requiring me to spend the day of the party making an elaborate dessert.

Trying to Remember What Actually Makes a Party Special

I still have a little planning left to do, especially making sure our backyard is comfortable and safe for some of our older guests. I want to think through lighting, walking paths, seating, and all of those practical details before everyone arrives.

But otherwise, I’m trying very hard to leave it alone.

I could keep adding things. I could add more decorations, more food, more little details for people to discover. That is always the temptation when you genuinely enjoy hosting.

But I also know that none of those things will be what makes his 70th birthday special!

It will be having his family and friends gathered around the tables. It will be telling stories and laughing and eating baked pasta and looking through old photographs. It will be his grandkids running around the yard. It will be celebrating seventy years of a person we really, really love.

So that’s the plan for now: Italian food, family photos, grocery-store flowers, a little “Vintage 1965” wine, cake and ice cream, and a backyard full of people who love him!

Simple—or, at least, my version of simple.

I’ll share how it all comes together after the party!