His Thirtieth

26th January, when my country celebrates Republic Day, I celebrate a very special person’s birthday- my dear husband’s. It was Sanket’s milestone birthday this year. My man is 30 now!!

I thought and thought hard and came up with the idea of collecting birthday messages from his friends and family and give them all to him collectively. The idea behind this was to make everyone’s presence felt even when they were miles away and to let Sanket know, how special he is for each of us.

Thankfully, my mind worked well in advance this time. I started sending out the emails almost 2 months in advance (but I still got the messages till the very last minute). A new account was used and emails were sent in all possible directions. I had to dig into Sanket’s gmail account to search for his old friends, whom I’d never met. My sister took up the charge of reminding my side of the family and my Mother-in-Law managed the other side. Follow-ups, constant reminders and requests, finally fetched nearly 70 messages!!

The 70 messages were placed in 30 cards (30 for 30th b’day). Here are the pictures of the end products. Fasten your seat belts, you are about to face a hurricane of photographs.

I purposely stuck to Blues and Greens, no Pinks-Reds-Oranges because I wanted to keep it ‘boyish’. For the same reason Black-n-White photographs were used. This helped me to avoid a lot of colors on the face of cards. Print out of messages kept the cards neat and moreover, I did not want other’s messages to be written by me. However, I did personalize my card with a handwritten note on top of it (Just so me!!). I choose to use limited colors and supplies, which put me in a situation to crack my nerves to come up with different fronts for all the Thirty Cards.

Suggestion: If you plan to do the same, please plan ahead. It includes a lot of dependency on others and people’s busy schedules need consideration.

Though Sanket is not much of a reader, he had a great time going through the messages. And why not, most of the people stuck to the rule – ‘Only-Praises-on-Birthdays’! Nostalgia and leg-pulling added to the fun. A happy Birthday Boy Sanket was and that was worth all the efforts.

A very special ‘Thank You’ to all those who spared time for us and sent their messages. It was a pleasure to have you with us on the special day!!