Celebrate Your Grad in Style: 17 Graduation Party Ideas (2024)

Celebrate your graduate with easy graduation party ideas to make it special. From decor to food and special gifts, get all our best tips!

When my son graduated from high school in 2018, we knew we would be having a party!

He’s the oldest grandchild on both sides of our family.

With all our families coming to visit, we needed to do something special to celebrate together.

I also knew I wanted to keep things simple so we could enjoy this moment.

But simple can still be meaningful!

Here are a few of my favorite simple graduation party ideas.

I was able to use a lot of these ideas, plus some new ones when my twins graduated in 2021.

Between AnnMarie and I, we’ve had six high school graduates, and we’ve shared lots of simple and budget-friendly ideas from their parties.

Like this burlap banner.

These simple graduation year numbers.

This easy selfie station would be great at a graduation party.

These feminine photo centerpieces.

A fun way to display those school K-12 school photos.

This meaningful and personalized graduation book that brought tears to lots of eyes.

And these sentimental graduation gift ideas.

Here’s how I kept things simple at my son’s graduation party.

How to Serve Food at a Graduation Party

I kept the food simple. After all, who wants to spend the days while the family is in town cooking and doing dishes?

We ordered pulled pork barbecue and coleslaw from our favorite local spot.

Note: when the guy from the restaurant says to order half a pound per person, don’t listen. We had so much left over! Thank goodness it froze well!

I enlisted AnnMarie to help and she brought potato salad and cut watermelon plus an appetizer.

She’s amazing like that.

Bagged green salad made another easy side.

Skip buying big bags of chips that’ll go bad soon after they’re opened.

Especially if you live in the south.

Hello, humidity!

The little individual bags of chips are perfect!

You get variety, and they stay fresh all day.

Plus no germy hands reaching into a big bowl…

Jugs of tea and bottles of lemonade look fancy when you put them in cute dispensers.

I found some fun striped paper straws that matched my son’s high school colors at our local party store.

How to Make a Graduation Party Meaningful

My son began playing tee-ball when he was 4-years-old.

Travel baseball began at age 12.

He played his last game a few weeks before graduation.

So I knew I needed to honor this part of his life!

In the spirit of keeping things simple, I ordered some favorite dugout snacks from Amazon.

Grouping them together on a tray made them look like an old-timey concession stand.

Ideas to Display Memorabilia

There are lots of ways to celebrate your graduate’s accomplishments over their years of school.

I opted for a simple set-up to display some of his trophies, awards, and artwork.

The favorite item of the party?

The list of things he wanted to do when he grew up, recorded when he was 4.

Doesn’t everyone want to be a paper-picker-upper astronaut doctor golfer painter?

Try adding about 30 more job titles to that and you’ll get the idea!

That kid was ambitious.

Or indecisive.

You be the judge.

I also displayed lots of photos from throughout his years in school.

These photo banners were the biggest attention-grabber of the party.

Every guest spent time looking at all these fun memories!

The photo banner is so easy to make and after the party I put all the photos into an album as a keepsake.

A Few More Tips for Serving Food

I put finger foods and desserts on a separate table.

Our party began at lunchtime, just after the graduation ceremony.

I knew my son’s friends and their families would just be dropping in.

Having some light snack options gave people a chance to have a bite to eat even if they didn’t want a full meal.

Those are fresh pork rinds in the baskets in the front.

The barbecue place makes them and they are so good!

Simple and Affordable Graduation Party Decorations

AnnMarie used to have an Etsy shop and she made awesome paper crafts for parties.

I enlisted her services to make some custom tags that I used in a variety of ways.

The little toothpick pennants were a fun touch on the store-bought frosted brownies.

And I used one of the larger oval tags on top of the tiered tray.

Colored burlap is an inexpensive table runner option.

It dresses up the disposable paper tablecloths on the outside tables.

Each table got a simple mason jar centerpiece featuring another one of AnnMarie’s tags, some ribbon and crinkle paper, and some more photos attached to cake pop sticks.

Resources

I’ve put together a list for you to easily find all the items I used at my son’s graduation party.

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Click on the image to shop items from this post

Sources: Large Enamel Tub | Large Mason Jar Drink Dispenser | Small Mason Jar Drink Dispenser | 3-Tiered Serving Stand | Wood Serving Tray | Cracker Jacks | Small Packs of Sunflower Seeds | Bucket of Big League Chew | 1/4-inch Ribbon | Crinkled Paper Shred | Colored Burlap by the Yard | 8-inch Cake Pop Sticks | 32 oz Mason Jars | Striped Paper Straws

Other Graduation Party Ideas

Over the course of last May and June, we attended a lot of graduation parties!

There were so many wonderful ideas.

One of my favorite parties was just after the boys’ Baccalaureate service.

All fifteen guys from his friend group were there.

We made sure we got them all together for a picture in their gowns.

Since they went to two different high schools, we knew we wouldn’t get this special photo on graduation day.

The host got a cake decorated with another photo of all the boys from earlier that year.

She made simple flags with each of the boys’ future colleges!

I thought that was such a fun extra touch.

I hope these graduation party ideas help you plan a special celebration for your graduate too! I’d love to hear about how you made your party memorable.

If you have any questions or suggestions, contact me or leave a comment!

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