I want to plan a...?!
Answers: Please provide me with some sugestions to plan a perfect romantic birthday night for my husband.... (at our house...for the two of us)
For me, it's all about the food - if you're cooking, make adult food, the kind that the kids don't want to try. Exotic dips are fun - babaghanouj, muhammara, that sort of thing, with pitas or breadsticks - because you can feed it to each other or give each other tastes on your fingers. For my SO's Valentines day, I made food I thought would be very tactile - shrimp and veg on skewers, bread with dips, and then some other side dishes I knew he'd like.
You can always buy pre-made food at either a restaurant or a grocery store if you know some great dishes he loves. It depends on which he'd like better, really. Buy them a few hours before and heat them up or keep them warm in the oven. If you're buying white wine, buy it at the same time and chill it.
Set the table nicely. Sounds obvious, but a friend of mine's fiancee once served dinner to her on cracked bowls and a Sesame Street plastic plate. Shell out for a cheap tablecloth, a few blossoms or candles floating in bowls, that sort of thing.
As for desserts, I've always had plenty of success with champagne and cleaned strawberries. Tiny pastries are fun to feed to one another. Boozy desserts, laced with liqueurs, are great, too. I like chocolate custard, trifle or tarts made with Irish Cream. If he likes that sort of thing, blindfold him and feed him bits and pieces of tarts, biscuits, that sort of thing.
Get some easy listening kind of music. I'm a big fan of classical music, but my SO likes more modern, sensual kind of music - Carla Bruni, Diana Krall, and Aimee Mann.
Buy some massage oil - I like Wet brand, because they have flavour in them. Get a few candles, and if you can, put some flowers around the room. They make the place smell and look nice.
Dress up and wear some hot lingerie.
Romance doesn't happen without relaxation, so best way to plan is for you to have the day off to clean the house and do your shopping. Or, if you really want to relax, order food that you can heat up and your shopping is limited to champagne or wine.
It's best if you have everything prepared before your night begins, so you don't have to keep leaving the room to set things up, cook dinner, answer the phone, take care of kids, etc. In fact, if you have kids, this would be a good night to farm them out to a relative's house.
Set a cozy space for the two of you, with dim lights and/or candle light, and keep it warm so clothes can be minimal. To get things rolling, you could hire two massage therapists for a couples massage. It would be an hour of relaxation that would definitely set the tone for the evening. Just be sure to tell the therapist to do some tapotement at the end so you wake up a little bit, otherwise after the massage the two of you will just go to bed and end your evening early.
Keep everything easy and light. Remember how it was when you first met? That's the feeling you want to recapture.
