30 Flowers and Other Gift Ideas for 30th Birthday

Each year on my birthday, my husband makes sure that my gifts are exceptional. On the day of my 30th birthday, however, he surpassed himself and proved that he had read my blog with interest. How did he do it? Find out!

On my 25th birthday, my husband paved my paths with roses and gave me a bouquet comprising of 25 flowers. This time, when he arrived home from morning shopping, I received three bouquets, 3 flowers in each. ‘Ingenious,’ was my first thought. ‘And how frugal!’ What I didn’t know was that there was more to come.

30 flowers for 30th birthday

My guests started gathering in the afternoon. When the first couple gave me roses, I noticed they had had the same idea as my husband, and also bought me three flowers. Upon receiving a gift from the second couple, I thought it must have been a custom I was not aware of: three flowers for the 30th birthday. It was only when the third couple gave me flowers number 16, 17 and 18 that I realised that something was going on and someone must have planned it in a way that would result in me receiving 30 flowers in 10 bouquets.

Multi-language wishes for 30th birthday

I was also late in noticing another of my husband’s ideas for a joint gift. I am a graduate of Applied Linguistics, and many of my friends speak different foreign languages; therefore, I wasn’t much surprised when the first guests accompanied their bouquet with wishes in Chinese. The next ones, in Belarussian, were somewhat suspicious, but I didn’t realise it was another of my husband’s ideas until the third ones, in Mongolian. In order to keep the appearances, the organizer said his wishes last.

My wonderful guests pleased me with various spot-on gifts. You will read about one of them in the next post. But today I want to focus on what I received from my husband, for the flowers and the wishes were just a prelude.

Slide show for 30th birthday

When all the guests arrived, my husband played a slide show he had prepared together with our daughter. Since she resembles me a lot, she easily played her mummy in a slide show presenting my life in 30 seconds. The slide show also featured My Little Ponies, Duplo bricks and Play Dough used to create numbers ’18 + 12 years’.

Gift hunting for 30th birthday

As it turned out, the slide show was only an introduction to… gift hunting! One of the slides contained a hint related to the hiding place of my gift – one of our daughter’s books. That was where I found an envelope with another clue. I had to look for something that had wings. My first thought was owls, but the solution was an origami paper crane, which my husband folded specially for me and which had coupons pinned to its wings. Apart from 10 kisses, a romantic walk, winning a fight without valid arguments and other pleasures, they also included a voucher for a new hair dryer. The only problem was that I had to find it, too. One of the coupons had some play dough on it, which was supposed to be a hint. On the shelf where we keep the pots with dough, I found a box with the hair dryer and… a heart-shaped word cloud made of exactly 30 texts! I have prepared several heart-shaped word clouds in my life, so I know more than well how time-consuming they are. This fact made me even more touched and proud that my husband had learned to design them and had made his first one specially for me. With some help from my guests, a riddle on the other side of the paper led me to Duplo bricks which hid the last gift – a photo camera.

The guests were impressed. They applauded both me – for finding all the hidden treasure – and my husband – for coming up with and carrying out such an elaborate plan.

And you know what? I just can’t wait till my 40th birthday :)! How did you celebrate or how are you planning to celebrate your 30th birthday?

My advice:

– If the number of flowers/gifts is the key, as was the case now or with 18 lollipops for 18th birthday, prepare some spare pieces in case one of the guests forgets about the arrangement or has to cancel his or her visit. My husband hid as many as two ‘back up’ bouquets in a wardrobe.

– Make sure that the birthday girl has enough vases! Thirty flowers fit into several large vases or… 10 wine/juice bottles.