My wife and I are inviting 40 or so people for dinner at a cozy local restaurant to celebrate her 50th birthday. It should be a nice gathering and meal.
However, we’re terrible at party planning and we’re at a loss for planning the rest of the evening. I imagine 40 people showing up, eating, maybe singing “Happy Birthday”, and then leaving.
What else can we do to make this a memorable event?
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Get a large bowl, and as people arrive have them put their house keys in the bowl. After the party…
Hi Jebert
Some suggestions for you (bearing in mind I don’t know where you are/your budget/likes & dislikes)
For my best friends birthday I hired a close-hand magician to come for a couple of hours (one who specialises in close up card and magic tricks) he came to the restaurant and went from table to table, and it went down brilliantly. Very entertaining.
Or… how about going on somewhere after the dinner? - a late comedy show for example?
Or… how about hiring a cocktail bartender to come to the restaurant and make you all extra special drinks - you could even get them to invent a special 50th birthday drink for your missus.
While I’m on the subject of hiring entertainment - how about a comedian?
For my ex-bosses 50th we did a ‘This is Your Life’ suprise for him (do you know that show? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402532/ )we had a big red book, and did a retrospective on his life and it was really hilarious and memorable.
For my Dads 40th we took a big blank birthday card to the restaurant and after dinner we all had a great time discussing and coming up with 40 things to ‘do before he’s dead’ (excuse the gallows humour!) - it was a lovely way to round off the evening.
Good luck with it I’m sure you’ll have a blast!
Thanks for some good suggestions.
Keep 'em coming!
Ok, it’s official. I am a geezer. Pass the Geritol and get off’n my lawn ya goldurn whiippersnappers!
jebert I read what you’d planned and thought, dinner, cake, sing happy birthday, maybe some presents, sounds good to me.
Excuse me while I go sit on my front stoop and yell at the neighborhood [del]hoodlums[/del] kids.
Haven’t I been telling you that??? Sheesh… 
I wish I had some suggestions to offer, but I don’t like a huge deal to be made about my birthday and I don’t much like big social gatherings in restaurants - it’s too difficult to chat with all the guests.
One of the best parties I ever attended included a trivia game, which was great for the more, um, experienced of the guests. The young 'uns were so lacking in the essential knowledge needed to with the game. 
I can’t help about what to do after dinner, but I have a suggestion for you. Place several of those disposable cameras around the table/tables. Ask the guest to take photos, use up all the film and leave the cameras when the party’s over.
You’ll have dozens of candid photos of the evening.
Well before the party, solicit from your guests favorite memories about your wife, or things they treasure about her. (Do this without your wife’s knowledge, of course.) You could work the responses into the party in several ways:
Throw together a slideshow, working in comments from guests
Get a bunch of fortune cookies and replace the fortunes with lines from guests
Select some of the wilder memories and turn it into a game, where all the guests can guess which person/couple shares that particular memory with your wife (i.e. “This couple went whitewater rafting with The Mrs. and wound up stranded in the Grand Canyon. Who was it?”)
Speak to the manager of the restaurant. Not only will they have ideas for you (they likely have ‘regulars’) but they will be able to set limits - no firebreathers, for instance.
Well, most of the parties I go to tend to suck if there is no unattached chicks/booze/stuff to do but I guess this would be a bit of a different party.
They have these “Murder Mystery Dinners” around here that are pretty cool. You could even have the birthday girl be the one “murdered.” They are really pretty cool… specially after a few.
Good Lord, 40 people? You’ll be fine. The party will make itself. It’s really too large a gathering to have a murder mystery game or something. Make sure you have designated drivers, and enjoy. Everyone will chat and mingle and chat some more, and your wife will have lots of presents.
Make sure you tip the server well.