Lifestyle

How To Host A Surprise Engagement Party For Your Bestie

Published

4 years ago

February 28, 2021

Your best friend is about to take an essential step in their relationship, and they’ve asked you to participate in the moment. Being the excellent hostess and best friend you are, you were thrilled to take on the challenge. You want the event to showcase their special bond while also accommodating the needs of the other guests. With such a huge responsibility on your plate, you’re probably wondering how you can pull it off. Here are a few suggestions.

Ask About A Budget

Whether you’re throwing the party as a gift or your friend plans to pay, determine your budget in advance. While you may have a ton of ideas rolling around in your head, you don’t want to let your imagination break the bank.

Get Input

Before you start planning the engagement party, find out what your friend wants. Though you’re hosting the event, you must remember the day is all about them and their love. Ask them for ideas. If they don’t have any, jot down some of their common interests, favorite foods, and other things that you can use to come up with a theme.

Decide On a Venue

The next significant factor to consider is the venue. If the event is going to be small and intimate, you may be able to host it at your house. However, if you’re expecting many people, it may be best to look for a restaurant in Austin where you can reserve space for the occasion.

Food And Drinks

Whether you’re having the engagement party at your house or a local restaurant, you’ll need to decide on a menu. Remember to keep your friend’s food interests in mind as you make selections. You should also ensure you have a list of guests with special dietary needs so everyone can partake in a decent meal. As for drinks, it’s often best to select a few signature drinks and then have a few primary selections for guests to choose from.

Popping The Question

When planning an engagement party, don’t forget about the main event – popping the question. Perhaps they need your input selecting the ring. You can help them browse diamond rings or chose something more affordable, like moissanite rings or another diamond alternative. If they already have the ring, maybe they need help to decide how and when to ask the question. You might place the ring in a dessert or set up an area with the perfect romantic backdrop for your friend to ask one of the most important questions in their lifetime.

Decor

Speaking of a romantic backdrop, don’t forget to consider decor for the engagement party. Flowers and candles are always ideal decorations to help set the mood. You can drape the tables in white linens and create colorful centerpieces. Photographs are also excellent. Placing photos of the couple around the room gives guests an insight into their love story. Be sure to include elements like their favorite colors to personalize the space.

Activities

The engagement might be the main event, but you’ll need to keep your guests entertained until that moment arrives. Besides enjoying a good meal and conversation, think of cool games and activities for guests to enjoy. They can answer questions about the couple for prizes, play charades, or test their knowledge of romantic movies. If you have the space for it, you can even set up a mini photo booth for guests to capture this special moment.

Love is such a beautiful thing. Especially when it happens for someone you care about deeply. If you’ve been dubbed with the task of hosting an engagement party for your bestie, do the best you can to make them proud. By remembering the factors listed above, you’re sure to do a good job setting the scene for your friends to take a new step in their relationship. It will be an event that everyone enjoys and remembers for years to come.

Lifestyle

Derik Fay: The Quiet Architect of Impact-First Entrepreneurship

Published

1 week ago

May 8, 2025

Michelle Langton

In an era where noise often overshadows results, Derik Fay is quietly shaping a different kind of legacy — one built not on showmanship, but on undeniable substance. For more than two decades, Fay has engineered the rise of over 30 companies across industries as diverse as real estate, technology, healthcare, and entertainment. Yet his name rarely leads headlines — not because he hasn’t earned it, but because he never needed it to validate his success.

Growing up in Rhode Island, Fay learned early that the world rarely hands out opportunity; it must be seized, created, and multiplied. While many of his peers pursued traditional paths, he took a risk that would define the rest of his life: at just 22, he founded 3F Management, a venture firm with an entirely different mission — to build companies that would outlast trends, outperform markets, and, most importantly, out-impact their competition.

Instead of obsessing over short-term wins, Fay approached entrepreneurship like a craftsman. Much like Henry Ford, who famously said, “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business,” Fay built companies that weren’t just profitable — they were purposeful. Every venture was designed to create real, sustainable value, both for shareholders and for the communities they served.

Through his relentless focus on structure and leadership, Fay’s ecosystem of businesses now touches thousands of lives daily — from employees finding new opportunities to entrepreneurs gaining the mentorship they never had before. But unlike typical moguls who boast about headcounts, Fay views every job created as a ripple in a larger mission: empowering individuals to write better futures for themselves.

Where others have scaled fast and crashed harder, Fay’s model thrives on foundations few are patient enough to build anymore. His method is slower, smarter, and almost surgical: find what others overlook, fix what others fear, and grow what others abandoned too early. It’s this principle that led him to not just build companies — but to resurrect them, reimagine them, and sometimes even walk away if the mission no longer aligned with the impact he envisioned.

Fay’s philosophy extends far beyond boardrooms. Philanthropy isn’t a checkbox at the end of his success story — it’s embedded into the way he scales. His ventures are built with giving back written into their DNA, from local community initiatives to broader mentorship platforms that help emerging entrepreneurs get their first real shot at success. His life’s work is proof that wealth and generosity are not mutually exclusive — they are, in fact, essential partners.

Today, while newer generations of entrepreneurs hustle for likes and magazine covers, Fay’s name is whispered in rooms where real power moves. His reputation — built quietly but relentlessly — is that of a man who delivers, builds, and elevates without the need for public validation.

In a business world increasingly built on spectacle, Derik Fay reminds us that the most lasting legacies are forged not in the glare of the spotlight, but in the thousands of lives changed quietly along the way.

For more insights into Derik Fay’s ventures and philanthropic efforts, visit www.derikfay.com and follow him on Instagram @derikfay