Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Graduation Party Ideas

Looking for fun graduation party ideas? Check out this colorful Oh, the Places You’ll Go themed party for a high school graduation.

My sister’s graduation party was a big success. Everyone kept telling me how lovely all the decorations were. And my sister had a good time, which is the most important thing!

I got some great pictures of the decorations, but of course, I’m missing a few because my mom showed up with all the food before I could finish.

Completely on accident the party ended up being inspired by the cover of Dr. Suess’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go! which is my go-to graduation gift. This was completely unintentional, especially since my sister wanted her theme to be cats. Oh well.

The biggest reason I felt like the party was Dr. Seuss themed was because of the bright pink, orange and yellow, which my sister requested, decorations. I wrapped every surface of my house in these colors. (Also the balloon path was a fail. More on that on Wednesday)

All of the colors were so happy and cheerful and I really feel like using the same colors, streamers and pom poms in each party space made everything look cohesive.

But I was most proud of the outdoor setup. Our patio is small, but I had tables and chairs in the yard and it worked. It actually has made me reconsider our vision for the backyard.

The outdoors pictures are the ones that I didn’t get enough of, but you can see here that I had 3 tables set up with matching table runners and centerpieces to keep things cohesive (new favorite word) even though every chair and table were different. I also hung more streamers, tissue paper pom poms and a few paper lanterns in the trees and on the outside of the house.

The centerpieces were simply Dollar Tree vases that I sprayed with my favorite metallic gold spray paint paired with gold mason jars or bottles. Chelsea, sorry I copycatted you, thanks for being an inspiration! 😉

I also put Jesse’s beer pong table to more appropriate use and set it up to be the present/utensil station.  The straws are something I picked up at IKEA months ago and fit the theme perfectly. I even used the washi tape from the invitations to wrap the flower pot that the straws are in and to tape up the garland. Look at me tying things together. 

The plates were just bright yellow plates from Target and the napkins were pink, yellow and orange tie-dye, also from Target.

There’s that washi tape again and a picture of my gorgeous graduating sister! They grow up so fast!

Of course it wouldn’t be a party without the food. We had a ton of sides like pasta salad, potato salad, fresh fruit, 7-layer dip and my buffalo chicken dip. Plus my mom ordered a few pounds (yes pounds) of BBQ, cole slaw and baked beans from our local BBQ joint.

And of course there was a cake.

The party was an excellent success, and everyone had a wonderful time. It was nice to have most of my family over for the first time and give them tours of my house and everything.