My 30th Birthday Party

In the months leading up to my 30th birthday, I would lie awake at night, riddled with the exact anxieties I honestly thought I’d skip in my 29th year. Watching my friends go through their own pre-thirty meltdowns over the years left me confused. Like, almost all my friends turned 30 before me and they are all drop dead gorgeous, healthy, successful, happy, doing better than they ever were… and did I say gorgeous? So I’ve always known there’s nothing to worry about. But that didn’t stop me from having a full-blown pre-thirty crisis of my very own at the beginning of the year. At first, I thought about having a fancy dress party. I found a great website that sold gorgeous onesies and I nearly bought one to wear at my party! My friend told me that we would look cute together in this stitch onesie that I found, but after careful consideration, I decided to go for another party theme.

Thoughts of missed opportunities and future worries crept up on me at 2am and made my heart beat three times its normal speed. The idea that from here on out, nothing I do will come with the exclamation “and she’s so young!” had me wishing for just a little more time. I walked into work one day and realised for the first time that I wasn’t the youngest person at the office anymore. I wasn’t even one of the youngest! And that freaked me out. Because while in your 20’s, pretty much any time you don’t drop the ball, you’re impressive. When you hit 30, no one expects anything less. It’s quite a bit of pressure.

So how do you deal with such a crisis? You run away obviously! That’s why I planned a holiday with Keenan to Mauritius, where I envisioned spending the last hours of my 20’s and first hours of my 30’s swimming in turquoise waters, drinking cocktails and possibly crying. But my friends eventually convinced me that this milestone birthday deserved a party. So I lost the plot, booked an 8 bedroom villa, bought a sparkly dress and completely blew my budget on the fanciest (and funnest) party of my life. I got so many great and hilarious gifts like a bobblehead of myself (who knew you could get a Custom Bobbleheads doll!), I also got many more meaningful gifts from some of my more sentimental friends. I love sharing my highs and lows with you guys, and lots of you requested a party blog post, so I thought I’d share some of the night with you. We all had a great time and we even played dares like we used to when we were younger! If you’re throwing a party, here is a list of the dares that you can use.

My 30th Birthday Party

My birthday is only on the 23rd of July, but I already feel like I’ve had the best birthday ever. To end, I wanted to share a little bit of my birthday toast with you guys.

“Before this party, I was stressing so much about turning 30. I wanted to go away, because – I don’t know why but – I was so scared of turning 30. I felt so emotional about it! But then Tamsin convinced me to have a party – thanks Tamsin! – and then by the time I’d decided to host it I thought ‘it might as well be a wedding with myself’. That’s why it’s so extreme now and I don’t regret anything. And then, when I was trying to make a guest list for this party, I didn’t just want to invite friends who I see out and about, or friends who I know from work. I really wanted to invite people who are super important to me and who I can see myself being friends with into my future. I know that there are some of you who I don’t see that often, but in my mind you’re still some of my best friends. So it means so much to me that you all came – leaving your babies or driving all the way or flying in. I want you guys to know that when I was lying awake, thinking about turning 30, I thought ‘well, every single one of my friends is over 30, and they are the hottest people I’ve ever seen – they’re all hotter than they were when they were 21. And richer! It can only be so much better from here on out’. So you guys truly are my inspiration. Everything from your marriages and your kids to your careers and your travels and exciting ventures. So thank you and I hope that you’ll be at my 60th and my 90th. Where I will look exactly the same of course, especially my forehead – which will be 27 forever! And happy birthday to every single person having their birthday this year! And thank you of course to Keenan, for putting up with every single thing about me. Especially this dress which I know you hated. In fact, over 200 people on Instagram hated it – and they were very specific about their feedback. I actually learned a valuable lesson through this dress, which is ‘don’t ask everyone for advice’. Because some of the feedback I received on my Instagram poll about whether I should wear the dress or not was like ‘try it with Spanx’ and of course, I was already wearing Spanx. So my lesson is to trust only my own decisions!”