Graduation party ideas for guys

This classic look, vintage graduation mantel and table decor are the perfect graduation party ideas for guys in your life. Change out the black and gold colors for your son’s school colors and you are set!

Are you looking for graduation party ideas for guys and coming up short? That was me as well, it seemed everywhere I looked, it was mostly decorations aimed at girls. Do the guys’ families not decorate for their graduation parties or what? 🙂 Anyway, I thought I would post about what we did to help you with a few ideas. I also have a graduation garage party post for more ideas if you would like to check that out as well. 

DIY Light Up Marquee Numbers

For privacy purposes, I have blurred all faces and names in the pictures, as I don’t like to put out our kid’s information online. I am sure you can understand. 😉 We decided to have this graduation party indoors for the most part, so I decorated our mantel and parlor room with a black and gold decoration theme. The biggest focal piece of decor is obviously the mantel with this awesome DIY light up marquee sign. 

I will be sharing a tutorial for these light up marquee numbers next week so stay tuned for that! I LOVE how they turned out and the old Hollywood feel that they give the graduation mantel. They were easy and fairly inexpensive to make considering what in would take to buy some, if you can even find them this size, for that matter. The lights are battery operated and can be turned on solid or blinking. The nice thing is that the sign still looks great even with the lights off, so you can conserve the batteries for the party!

We used a pallet board as a backdrop for the mantel and to mount the marquee numbers to. I decorated the pallet board using streamers similar to how I did for our graduation garage party. Check out that post to see how to make the streamer backdrop. For this one, I alternated black and white regular streamers and added some shiny gold and black fringe streamers. It looks really nice when there is a slight breeze on it from the fan, almost like it glitters.

The battery packs for the lights were mounted onto the side of the pallet board so they were easy to turn on and off.

Black and gold vintage graduation decor

I think the black and gold color scheme, along with the marquee lights, has a nice vintage feel to it so I added some other vintage looking items to the mantel to complement that look. On the left is a vintage fan stacked on some black and gold books.

On the right, I added a vintage looking globe. I also like that the globe signifies that adventure awaits the graduate, and the world is their oyster for them to take. This is a new beginning for them and such an exciting time.

Graduation Chalkboard

In the middle of the mantel, I added a chalkboard that I made up. We all thought this Dr. Seuss quote was perfect for graduation decor. Check out my post showing you how to make a chalkboard if you want to make one of your own. Here is the free PDF file of the chalkboard. My chalkboard is 16 x 20 inches in size so it is formatted for that size, but it will work for smaller as well.

Next to the chalkboard is a senior picture of our son with a tassel hanging from it. 

Black and gold plaid banner garland

I added several garlands to the mantel, including this black, silver and gold circle garland (affiliate link) that I found on Amazon. In addition, I added a banner garland that I made up in the same fashion as this flip banner several years ago. My son is a big fan of plaid patterns, so I made it with some black and gold metallic plaid scrapbook paper. I like the layered garland look, so I also added a wood bead garland too.

Lastly, like my usual decorating, I coordinated the pillow covers to match with the rest of the black and gold graduation decor.

Graduation table decor

Around the rest of the room, I had a cupcake display across from the graduation mantel. Of course, I did not get any good pictures of it except for this one with horrible lighting. That is usually how it goes, right? I styled the cupcake display similar to our last garage graduation party. We had a slideshow of our graduate playing on the television above the cupcakes the whole party with music playing on our speaker system.

The candles were decorated with some of the same plaid paper and also leftover metallic fringe pieces.

In the entryway, was a display table set up for pictures and cards/gifts. We also displayed his diploma and program from the graduation ceremony. In back of the table, we hung his cap and gown as decor on the coat rack. Why not use it? It fits the theme perfectly. 😉

On the coat rack, we also displayed some of his digital artwork that he did in high school. He is a super talented artist, if I can be the proud Mom and brag for a little bit. 🙂

Hope this post gave you some ideas for graduation party ideas for guys. Now obviously, these ideas can be used for gals too, but I wanted to try to get more ideas out there for the poor fellows who aren’t getting decorations. Ha! I will be back next week with the tutorial on the DIY marquee lights. Chat soon!