We threw an epic beach club themed birthday party for my 33rd birthday at a local beach. Here’s how we did it on a budget of under $1,000. This post contains affiliate links. By clicking or using the links, I make a small commission at no additional cost to you.

How to Throw an Epic Beach Club Themed Birthday Party

I always gravitated towards the beach growing up. I love the sound of the waves, the breeze and just the calmness that comes with being on the beach. For my 33rd birthday, I wanted to channel all of that calmness that the beach gives. Going into this year that’s all that I wanted. After recovering from having having a kidney transplant, I really wanted a little bit of a slower pace.

I knew that I wanted to have a party on the beach for my 33rd birthday. Honestly I didn’t even know this was possible because I’ve never seen it done before. When I mentioned it to my husband, he had already started planning something else but since this is what I wanted, he canceled his plans and pivoted to this idea instead. And of course I sprung this idea on him 3 weeks before my birthday in the middle of a million other things going on but we made it happen.

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The Vision

I had dreamt up this vision in my head of exactly what I wanted to party to look like. When planning, I pulled inspiration from places like Pinterest and Google by searching “beach birthday party”. I created a Pinterest board with DIY ideas, color palettes and parties thrown by others. The vibe I was going for was a beach club mixed with a camp party so I pulled images from both. I wanted the party to be right around sunset so we could make s’mores on a campfire.

Canva and Pinterest were my go-to for creating the vision board and layout for the party. Creating vision boards is something that I like to do for every party or gathering that we host. It helps me to keep all of my ideas in one place. This concept for this party literally came to me in a dream and then I kind of ran with it. I knew I wanted orange and pink to be the color scheme. Pink is of course my favorite color so I had to incorporate it for my birthday. Honestly I just wanted the vibes to be bright and colorful and I think we executed it perfectly.

Once I had all of my inspiration pulled together onto a Pinterest board, I headed to Canva to create a PDF of my vision for the party. I used a template from the last party that we had and edited it for my birthday party. Creating this layout and having it on hand throughout the planning and setup helps everyone to know where everything goes, what our timeline is like and budget for the party.

The Setup

Since my husband and I were setting this up on our own, we were pretty much on the same page the day of the event. We had a game plan the day of the party for him to do all of the heavy lifting and I would do all of the details/decor setup. I like to do this way because I prefer things to be in a particular order. It also helps us divide and conquer which enables us to get things done a lot quicker.

While he was doing things like putting up the arches, I was able to create the table settings and centerpieces for the tables. If we had chosen to have hired people to set up for this, I could’ve easily handed them this layout to make things easy for them when setting up. Either way if you’re like me and like things to be exactly how you want them, I highly suggest creating some sort of visual layout ahead of time.

Birthday Party Invitations

The invitations were created on Canva. They were really simple but perfect for the party and the theme. I made it double sided so that I could include all of the important info for the party on the back. This was a kids free party. I didn’t want everyone to be more worried about keeping their kids safe than having a good time. So we opted for a kids free party and had a really great time. We also asked for our guests to let us know of any allergies in advance with their RSVP so we could accommodate them.

Because we planned this party in only 3 weeks, all of the invites were sent through text as a picture. If we had a little more time, I definitely would’ve mailed out all of the invitations with nice envelopes and RSVP cards.

Beach Club Themed Birthday Party Decor

The decor was modern, colorful and simple yet elegant. I incorporated elements like fresh flowers from Trader Joe’s for the table centerpieces. I grabbed a few of those $3 acrylic flower vases (similar ones linked here) that went viral at Target and they worked out perfectly for the IKEA tables that we DIY’d. Incorporating flowers was a must to really bring the tablescapes to life. I spent about $30 on flowers from Trader Joe’s for all of the flowers at the party.

Hobby Lobby had the cutest wooden mini arch that was perfect for a welcome sign. It cost around $14. If it’s full price when you go to Hobby Lobby, go back the next week and it will be 40% off. I cut out some removable vinyl with my Cricut to customize it. After the party I can remove the vinyl and reuse the arch for something else.

I used a metal arch from Amazon for the main arch with a neon LED sign that I grabbed at Hobby Lobby for $15. The sign was literally perfect once the sun went down. It helped light up our little area on the beach. I would highly recommend having a few LED signs and battery operated candles if you plan on having a party on the beach at night after dark.

Originally we were supposed to have 2 arches and a balloon garland. When the party day came around we didn’t want to drive 2 cars to the beach just to have balloons and I was happy with that. Typically for our parties I blow up the balloons and make the arches, and this time around it just wasn’t a priority. It would’ve definitely looked cuter with the balloons but after the party was over I realized we made the right decision leaving the balloons at home. Could you imagine popping 100 balloons in the dark on the beach and making sure they all made it to the trash?! I definitely did not want to have to deal with that.

The rugs under the tables were an amazing find from Five Below!

Party DIYs

Of course I DIYd a bunch of different things for the party. We used DIY tables, an arch sign for the food, and stickers that I created with my Cricut. The stickers were such a perfect touch for the party. I even customized disposable napkins for the party using napkins from Dollar Tree.

The tables that we used were DIYs that we made a couple of parties back. I think the first party that we used them for was this Bridgerton brunch. Then we used them again for Trevor’s monster truck themed party. They’re great to have on hand if you have kids parties often or picnics. The tables are super easy to make too. All you need are these Linmon table tops from IKEA and foldable legs from Amazon.

The camping chairs were a DIY that doubled as party favors. They were a huge hit!

Dress Code

Most importantly, we let everyone know the dress code. I wanted everyone to wear orange or white to compliment the theme. Since pink is my favorite color, I chose a pink bathing suit. I ended up wearing white over it because it was a bit chilly on the beach. Pink helped me stand out from everyone else which was great.

The Food

I love to cook but one thing I wasn’t doing for this was cooking. We went straight to Publix. I had this vision of having a beautiful dinner on the beach but then I stopped to think about it and changed my mind immediately. The thought of the sand and glass dinnerware on the beach just didn’t sit with me. Plus I wanted this party to be very laid back.

Instead we opted with some of my favorite foods from Publix and called it a day. You can honestly never go wrong with Publix food for a beach club themed birthday party. We ordered hot honey chicken wings, subs, and made some shrimp skewers at home on the grill. We wanted to have things that could be easily warmed up on the fire pit if needed. I individually wrapped the subs in parchment paper and sealed them with the customized stickers that I created.

I also put together individual charcuterie and s’mores boxes, using these boxes from Amazon, for all of the guests. Most of the food supplies were from either Trader Joe’s, Target or Publix.

Cost Breakdown

We were on a strict $1,000 budget for this beach club themed birthday party. I wanted to come under that as much as I possibly could. If you plan properly, you can easily stay within budget. I kept a spreadsheet while planning the party of everything that we were buying. Make sure to put anything that you buy into the spreadsheet for tracking your spending.

Of course if I had a larger budget, I could have had more of the things that I wanted but staying on budget was super important to me. It helped that we already had things like the DIY tables, string lights, the metal arches and a Cricut on hand to DIY a lot of the different elements for the party. We had 17 guests at our party. Here’s a breakdown of the cost:

• Venue – $0
• Fire Pit + Wood – $70
• Beach Chair DIY + Drink Pouches – $70
• String Lights + Candles – $20 (already had on hand, replaced the batteries)
• Metal Arches + Covers – $30 (had to buy covers, already had arches)
• Food (cake, s’mores, etc) – $250
• Table Centerpieces (plates, napkins, florals, vases, etc) – $75
• Decor (LED sign, umbrella, beach balls, etc) – $125
• Beach Parking – $20

TOTAL COST: $660

watch how the party came together on my stories here

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