School’s out! Party on! The best part of summer is relaxation in the warm weather, so why not create a few fun summer parties for all your friends to enjoy? Take advantage of the warm weather and plan a few outdoor parties! The easiest way to do so is by picking a theme and simply altering your party just enough for the theme to work outdoors rather than indoors. Here are a few ideas:
1.) Luau Summer Pool Party: Break out the bathing suits, Hawaiian shirts, leis, and grass skirts! What better way to ring in summer than with a pool 
party? Provide all your guests with a coconut cup filled with a tropical punch-flavored slushy drink and at least one lei to throw around their neck. In addition to those fun luau favors, give your female guests grass skirts and flowers to put in their hair! Scatter a few palm tree coolers around your yard to give guests a place to find more cold beverages once their slushy drink is gone. What are your options if you don’t have a pool? Use a sprinkler and your garden hose!
2.) Backyard Summer Barbecue: While, yes, it seems to go hand-in-hand with the luau pool party, it’s just different enough to be a second great summer party. Plan a menu first: pulled pork sandwiches (barbecue or not), corn (on 
or off the cob), and fruit would make a great, summery combination. Decorate your tables with a classic barbecue red gingham table cover and provide fun plates, napkins, and utensils. Then, as your guests sit at their tables to enjoy their food, serve another cool summer treat: a sherbet float in a goblet with a fun squiggle straw! Just pour lemon-lime soda over two or three scoops of rainbow sherbet ice cream. It’s a fun, fruity twist on a classic summer favorite, the root beer float.
3.) Fifties Drive-in Summer Picnic: This is where the classic root beer floats
and black cows (a cola poured over vanilla ice cream) from the fifties come into play! Decorate your tables with a float candle and serve your guests both yummy ice cream beverage in classic soda shop glass that your guests can take home as a fun summer favor. A few other great favor ideas are plush dice that your guests can hang from their rearview mirrors (especially if they have fun, old-fashioned cars that they’ve worked to restore), classic black sunglasses for the men, and diamond cat sunglasses for the women.
4.) Carnival Summer Party: Summertime equals festivals, parades, theme parks, and carnivals! Every teenager looks forward to a summer trip to a theme park to ride roller coasters and eat the amazing junk food that appears 
at every theme park across America. Why not bring a fun, carnival-like junk food alley to your backyard? When your guests arrive at your party, greet them at the entrance and place a sparkly wrist band on them so they can feel like it’s a private carnival rather than simply a summer carnival party. Also, give each guest a carnival favor box that they can decorate to hold their candy as they play games. Plan a wide variety of carnival games for every guest to participate in. When it comes to thinking of prizes for the games, hand out candy at each game booth. Keep a concession stand open for your guest to come find food and snacks, such as banana splits in dessert servers and popcorn in popcorn bags.
5.) Pirate Summer Party: This will give your guests a bit of a twist on a classic summer beach party. When you send out party invitations, include a note that requests your guests to attend in a pirate costume—this is a great way to 
have a costume party in the summertime! Invite your guests to participate in a treasure hunt, with rewards along the way. Then, give them pirate pouches to keep those rewards (or their pirate booty) in. At the end, when your guests get to the treasure chest, they can arrive to find it filled with yummy ice cream treats and popsicles! A word to the wise: wait as long as possible to hide this. Send your guests on a wild goose chase to the front of the house, thinking you hid the treasure there. Then, when they get back to the central party area and see the chest, they’ll be shocked!
There are many other ways to ring in summer and many other fun summer party ideas to plan. Just remember the keys of summer and your planning will go easier: fun games, warm weather, and cool frozen treats will make your friends and guests love every summer party that you host.
Parties with a 50’s theme are excellent choices for Rock n’ Rollers of all ages but are especially popular with teens and adults. Just ask Jill Thomsen who put on a party for Culver City.
A Soda Arch is the perfect way to welcome your guests to your sweet ice cream eating bash! This one is especially perfect for a child’s party! Place a Giant Soda next to your food table as a larger than life taste of the 50’s. You can’t have a soda shop setting without the ice cream! Add easy to hang Ice Cream Cones and hang them everywhere you can!
