How to Celebrate Your Wife's Birthday

Throwing a Party

Plan a surprise party to celebrate with all of her friends and family. Send out invitations a month in advance of the party, and remind attendees not to say anything to the birthday queen. Then, lead your wife there on the day of the part under the guise of going somewhere else, and have her family and friends jump out and surprise her when you arrive! Be sure to stress the importance of keeping it a secret on the invitation. If you know someone is a bad secret keeper, talk to them in person or on the phone about ways they can avoid your spouse before the party. Some people don’t like surprises. If you’re thinking of planning a surprise party, ask your wife how she feels about them well in advance. If she says no, respect her wishes. The first thing to do when starting to plan a birthday party is to get a good sense of what your budget is for the event. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting your spending out of control. If money's tight right now, host the party at a time where you don't need to serve a full meal. This way, you can have light bites that are nice for guests, but you don't need to serve a heavy lunch that will fill everybody up.

Invite her family and friends for a low-key birthday dinner. If your wife isn’t enthusiastic about her birthday, a small birthday dinner might be the best way to celebrate. Invite her family and 3-4 of her closest friends to go to a nice restaurant. If you’re on a tighter budget, have dinner at your house for everyone. Make your wife’s favorite party foods so she can celebrate with her friends while saving money. If you want to mix it up, you can even invite them to brunch on her birthday. That gives you the rest of the day to celebrate and do more birthday activities.

Take her to dinner and have a night out for two to celebrate alone. This is a great gift idea if your wife asks to just spend time with you for her birthday. Plan a night of drinks, dinner, and dancing, or a fancy dinner and a show. Your wife will remember this birthday for years to come! If you still want to invite her friends to celebrate, ask them to meet you at the bar after dinner for a couple of drinks and some dancing.

Treating Her to an Experience

Pamper her with a spa day if she never takes time for herself. Visit local spas and ask if they offer special packages for a massage, facial, manicure, or pedicure, and book the services for a day that your wife is free. Present the gift to her by giving her a brochure for the spa with a heartfelt note. If you’re not sure what kind of services she’d like, purchase a gift certificate and let her schedule the spa day for herself. That way, she can pick exactly what she wants to pamper herself with.

Take her on a vacation for a major milestone birthday. Many women dream of taking some time off for their birthday, and if you can make it happen, you definitely should. Milestone birthdays like 30, 40, 50, and 60 are all great opportunities to take a trip together to somewhere you’ve never been. You can either tell her in advance or surprise her, but just remember that planning a surprise trip is much more difficult. Be sure to call her work and let them know that you’re planning a surprise trip for the week of her birthday so she doesn’t get in trouble for calling off.

Take her to a concert or festival if she loves music. If your wife is a music lover or you bonded over a specific artist or band, buy her tickets to go see them. The concert doesn’t have to be on the day of her birthday, but it’s definitely helpful if it is. If your wife loves classical music, take her to see the local symphony. Most large cities have a symphony that plays different shows throughout the week, so it won’t be hard to get tickets on her birthday.

Buying a Gift

Get her a piece of meaningful jewelry to commemorate her birthday. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and rings are all great gifts for your wife’s birthday. They don’t have to be expensive, but the jewelry that you buy should match her personal style. If you need some inspiration, look at the kind of jewelry that she wears each day. That will help you narrow down your search to a specific type of jewelry that she’ll actually use. A great piece of jewelry for a birthday gift is anything with her birthstone in it. Looking for a specific stone will help narrow your search and the gift will be personalized to her.

Send her a birthday bouquet. Flowers are a great way to show your wife that you care and that she’s special! If you know her favorite flower, have the flower company deliver a bouquet of them to her work, school, or house. You can pick a large bouquet as her main gift or a smaller one as a little gift to start her day with a smile. If you don’t know her favorite flower, choose a bouquet of seasonal flowers like daisies in the summer or tulips in the spring.

Buy her a gift that is useful for one of her hobbies. If your wife has a specific interest, like makeup, gardening, video games, or reading, buy her something for her hobby that she doesn’t already have. Keep an eye out for unique and special items throughout the year that she could use. Take a look at her collection already to see what she already has and make sure you don’t buy her a duplicate. If you’re not sure what she already has, you can get a gift card to a store that specializes in her hobby so she can pick her gift. Reader Poll: We asked 264 wikiHow readers about the best gifts to give to a woman, and 55% recommended gifts related to her hobbies and interests. [Take Poll] A gift related to her passions will show your wife that you listen to and understand what's important to her.

Making a Gift

Make her breakfast in bed to start the day on a good note. Wake up early and sneak out of bed to prepare her favorite breakfast items. Then, arrange them neatly on a tray with a cup of coffee or glass of orange juice. You can even place a birthday card or flower on the tray for an added surprise. This a particularly great gift if your wife has to work on the day of her birthday. She’ll be happy all day thinking about her awesome birthday breakfast.

Create a photobook of memories to remind her of her awesome life. For this gift, consult her friends and family to get pictures from her past. Focus on the different stages of her life, like childhood, young adulthood, and eventually all of the adventures that you two have had together. Compile them into a photo book and present it to her on her birthday. You can even include notes from her friends and family about their memories of different events. For example, ask her parents to tell the story of the day she was born, or get her best friend to write about how they met.

Give her a “coupon book” of special tasks related to your relationship. This is a unique and fun way to give your wife passes to do what she wants throughout the year, not just on her birthday! Make them yourself, and think about things you know she would enjoy, like a week of not doing the dishes, or a complaint-free chick flick movie marathon. You can buy coupon books like these at some stores, but it’s definitely more heartfelt when you make them yourself. All you have to do is fold some pieces of paper in half, staple them together, and write your “coupons” on the pages.