How to throw a “Pitches Night In” Birthday Party

This post was in partnership with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. All opinions are my own.

Aca-believe it! It’s my 28th birthday this week – eek! In an effort to make my birthday month the most positive month I’ve had in a long time (survivor’s guilt usually makes it a rough month for me) I decided to go all out and throw myself a themed birthday party this last weekend. I can’t remember the last time I actually had a legit BIRTHDAY PARTY – I seriously think it might have been my sweet 16! I mean, I’ve had birthday dinners and informal gatherings of friends after, but an actual themed party? I knew I wanted it to be a super fun, girly party with lots of snacks and lots of laughs, but low-key at the same time (no need to dress up too fancy to go anywhere.) Obviously, I decided to go with a “Pitch Perfect 3” theme, because is there a better combo of funny and girly out there? No, no there is not. Plus, the Bellas are back for one last call in Pitch Perfect 3. Now available on Blu-ray, own it with new musical performances, gag reel, and extended scenes not seen in theaters. It was perfect star to center my birthday party!

Not to toot my own horn, but we had the BEST time at my birthday party. There’s something slightly magical and nostalgic about throwing a themed party and it was really nice to put all the real-world, adult struggles to the side (looking at you, taxes) and just focus on being with a great group of girls and watching a movie that promoted girl power, women supporting other women, and following your passion!

SO! I’m going to break down every part of putting this “Pitches Night In” so that you can crush hosting your own Pitch Perfect themed birthday party.

Decorations

Balloons – Obviously because it’s a birthday party! I decided to pull the main colors from the blu-ray cover and got blue, yellow, and pink balloons along with a giant 2 and 8. (I’ve always wanted a reason to have giant number balloons.) I put these in bunches around my living room and then blew up a ton of Pitch Perfect branded balloons to scatter around the furniture and floor. Teddy, my doodle, was obsessed with these and we had so much fun throwing them at him so he could bop them back with his nose.
Garlands – I picked up a blue paper garland to hang over our refreshment table to bring more of the blue and yellow theme into the room. I found a “hooray” garland at my favorite dollar spot and put that across my mirror. I figured a Hooray banner would be more versatile over a Happy Birthday banner, cause there are lots of reasons to celebrate throughout the year.
Twinkle Lights – I wanted to play off of the “Flashlight” song from Pitch Perfect 2 and bring a sense of being at a show, so I grabbed some star twinkle lights to drape across the snack table!
Pitch Perfect Tees – I wanted to give all my friends something at my party (like a party favor) so I was stoked to see the Pitch Perfect tee’s that had some of the best sayings from the movies in my package from Universal Pictures! All my friends were able to take a shirt home!

Pitch Perfect Theme Snack Ideas

Snacks are one of the BEST parts of a party, and I wanted to stay in my “Pitch Perfect” theme, so I decided to find quotes from the movies that I could use as inspiration for what kinds of snacks I could serve!

“I’m Gonna Finish Him like a Cheesecake” – One of the most iconic Fat Amy lines ever, so obviously, I had to find a way to incorporate cheesecake into the refreshments. I decided to pick up some cheesecake bites so that everyone could try as many flavors as they wanted. Plus, this prevented us from having to carry around giant paper plates of cheesecake – they were easy to pop into our mouths while we chatted and tossed balloons for Teddy.

“Crushed It” – Another iconic (and hysterical) Fat Amy quote from the original Pitch Perfect that I had to utilize! I decided to grab some Crush Orange Soda for everyone to drink while we snacked and chatted!

“Let’s Remix this Business” – Trail Mix Bar – “Let’s Remix this Business” is one of my favorite quotes/parts from the first Pitch Perfect movie, so I thought it would be fun to create a snack based off of that quote. I created a Trail Mix Bar, where my guests could “remix” their own trail mix! It was fairly simple to put together and my girlfriends had so much fun creating their own custom snack blends. Here’s how I set it up:

I grabbed blue and yellow pails from my favorite dollar spot to hold all the different snacks. I also recommend grabbing some plastic utensils for dishing out the treats so your guests don’t have to use their fingers (totally spaced on that one – sorry girls!)
I had six different mix-ins to choose from: Vanilla Chex (cause it tastes like birthday cake,) Goldfish, Butter Snap Pretzels, Chocolate Covered Almonds, Cheddar and Caramel Popcorn and M&Ms. The best part about a trail mix bar is that you can get as creative as you want and have as many mixings as you want. Other ingredient ideas include chocolate chips, peanuts, marshmallows, chips, Cheetos, gummy bears, and cheerios!
I grabbed little plastic favor bags for my friends to scoop their mixes into – this was great because they could carry them down to the family room and snack on their mixes while we watched Pitch Perfect 3!

Party Activity Ideas

Since we were having a low-key night in, I decided to start out with something that every girls night usually has – girl talk and makeovers! We all caught up on life, talked about our husbands and kids and painted our nails! I had the Live Love Polish Pitch Perfect 3 collection sent to me, which was full of super vibrant and glittery polishes with fun Pitch Perfect names, like Deep Treble, Awesome Nerds and Bellas for Life. My sister decided on black polish base with the gold “Last Call Confetti” on top and it looked exactly like a Bella costume in nail form. They were stunning.

We originally planned to take some “girl band” photos of us walking down the street in sunglasses and try to recreate some iconic Bella group photos, but alas, the weather was not on our side during my party. It started doing a nasty mix of snow/sleet/rain and we decided to skip the outdoor photos and take a couple group shots with all of our Pitch Perfect balloons.

After we finished snacking and let our nails dry, we got all the blankets and snuggled up into my family room sectional to watch Pitch Perfect 3. Guys. THIS MOVIE IS HYSTERICAL. Normally, by the time you get to the third movie in a series, the jokes are old and cliche and come across as trying too hard. Not Pitch Perfect 3! I laughed just as hard (if not harder) as I did with the first one. It was such an enjoyable ride and had us all doubling over at one point or another.

Here’s a brief synopsis of the movie and the trailer to give you a taste of the aca-awesomeness that it is.

” Now graduated from college and out in the real world where it takes more than a cappella to get by, the Bellas return in Pitch Perfect 3, the next chapter in the beloved series that has taken in more than $400 million at the global box office.

After the highs of winning the World Championships, the Bellas find themselves split apart and discovering there aren’t job prospects for making music with your mouth. But when they get the chance to reunite for an overseas USO tour, this group of awesome nerds will come together to make some music, and some questionable decisions, one last time.”

I never thought I’d be throwing myself a legit themed birthday party, but I had SO much fun putting it together. I’m not the craftiest person when it comes to this kind of thing, but having a solid theme (Pitch Perfect) made it easy to come up with fun activities and snacks to serve. It was the perfect combination of low-key hanging out with my girls, watching movies and painting nails, while still feeling like a legit celebration. And since my party last week, I’ve already watched Pitch Perfect 3 two more times, because it is THAT FUNNY and THAT ENTERTAINING. It’s definitely made my top 10 list of movies I could watch over and over again.

Pitch Perfect 3 is available on Blu-Ray and DVD as of TODAY, so I challenge you to grab a copy and plan your own Pitches Night In this weekend! Let me know what your favorite part of the movie is below!