Greg turned 40 this year and we are also celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. Surprisingly, I’m more shocked that we’ve been married for 15 years than I am that Greg is turning 40. Probably because I’ve already turned 40 and I’m like, hurry up already!
So for both of those milestones we decided to plan a little getaway trip for ourselves to Asheville, NC. That trip isn’t until mid-May, and I didn’t want Greg’s big 4-0 to go unnoticed, so I planned a little (not so little) trivia night at our house. I invited some of our neighbor friends and we had an absolute blast. I thought if someone wanted to replicate this party, I’d give you all of the deets including my trivia questions!
Let’s get started.
Music
First thing first….music might be hands-down, one of the most important elements of a party and it comes in a close second to food and drink. The minute I told Greg I wanted to throw a party for his birthday, he started working on the playlist. He is a music connoisseur through and through, so this was super fun for him. We had everything from 70s classic rock (Greg’s slightly obsessed) to present country. The one thing that we have learned over the years is that people have fun at a party when they hear music that they can identify with. Songs that throw them back to a simpler time and make them nostalgic. Just give Greg some Snoop Dog and he’s ready to party.
We had so much fun listening to all of the old stuff that we even planned a girls trip to a Poison concert after several songs and several glasses of wine. Love me some Bret Micheals! Do they even still tour?!?!?!
Food
I have to admit, I wanted to take the easy way out on this one. Because I was organizing the trivia, I really didn’t want to also make all of the food. I thought about having the party catered, and we do have some good options around us, but I decided to make a run to Costco first to check out what they had to offer before I went that route.
I’m glad I did because there are sooo many options at Costco! I opted for a platter of wraps, cut into 2″ pieces. There were approximately 48 wraps on the platter, and it ended up being way more than we needed, which was good because my biggest concern was that we wouldn’t have enough food.
I also grabbed 4 take-n-bake pizzas, a veggie tray, a couple of spinach/artichoke dips, a fruit tray, a cheese assortment and some cookies. I supplemented with tortilla chips, pita chips, crackers, popcorn and cupcakes (chocolate for the birthday boy).
It was plenty of food for 30 people and we had a ton of leftovers.
Trivia
Ok, so this was the time-consuming part. Not because finding trivia questions is hard, but because I really didn’t want Jeopardy-like trivia with questions from the 1860s or some question about Louis VIII. Ya feel me??? Those kind of questions don’t make people laugh. Do you see people laughing on Jeopardy??? Nope.
So, I dug in and started researching trivia questions several weeks in advance. These questions had to be somewhat challenging, fun, and get people talking. I also wanted to incorporate some questions that pertained to Greg in some way. I thought that questions from 1978 (his birth year if you’re slow at math like me) would be too far removed, so I opted for several questions from 1996, his graduation year.
So, onto the actual trivia….we divided the group into six teams, girls on 3 teams and boys on 3 teams – just like a junior high dance, and the two groups didn’t mix…just like a junior high dance, lol! I had the guys draw from a bowl of numbers that had either 1, 2, or 3 on the paper (we made sure to count our guests before we put numbers in bowls so we didn’t stack the teams). Whatever number they chose determined their team for the night. The ladies did the same thing, except they chose 4, 5, or 6.
Next, I created two power point presentations, one with questions only, and one with questions and answers, so that our guests could see the question while I read it.
Andria’s Trivia Questions:
Here are my questions and answers, in no particular order…
- How many people were killed in the 1996 movie Scream? seven
- In what movie did Kevin Spacey glue his fingers together to make his role more believable? The Usual Suspects
- Who won 6 consecutive Wimbledon singles in the 1980s? Marina Lavratilova
- Who had the 1985 hit song Take On Me? A-Ha
- What was the name of the mountain resort in Dirty Dancing? Kellerman’s
- Which country/pop singer was born Eileen Regina Edwards? Shania Twain
- Which guitar innovator and player has a range of Gibson guitars named after him? Les Paul
- Who is noted for his guitar solo on Stairway To Heaven? Jimmy Page
- What is the stage name for the member of Public Enemy who would later go on to have a reality dating show? Flavor Flav
- Who is the former drummer for Nirvana who would later go on to be the front man for the Foo Fighters? David Grohl
- Released in 1992, what is the best-selling soundtrack of all time? Bodyguard
- In Russia, a woman’s last name usually ends in what letter? A
- What is the highest-selling album of the 80s in the U.S.? Thriller
- Who is the only head basketball coach to win both an NCAA national championship and an NBA title? Larry Brown
- What team won the NCAA national championship in 1996? University of Kentucky
- What is the name of the scale used to measure the spicy heat of peppers? Scoville
- The first movie of The Fast and the Furious franchise was released in what year? 2001
- In the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun, which actress plays Goose’s wife? Meg Ryan
- What did the famous Hollywood sign originally say? Hollywoodland
- Sriracha is a hot sauce named after a city located in what country? Thailand
- To be legally sold as bourbon, a whiskey’s mash must contain at least 51% of what grain? corn
- Per capita, which state consumes the least beer? Utah
- Who sang the 1996 song Come On N Ride It? Quad City DJs
- What was the name of Napoleon’s llama in Napoleon Dynamite? Tina
A lot of these questions focused on things that Greg likes….basketball, his favorite movie (The Usual Suspects), hot sauce, and music. He didn’t know any of the questions ahead of time, and he admitted that he was stumped with several of them. His team did win the last round, so they may have had a slightly unfair advantage!
Prizes
I wanted to do some sort of prize for the winners, but since we were divided up into random teams, I wasn’t sure what to get for team prizes. It seemed to make more sense to do an individual prizes, so here’s how we did it.
At the end of the second round, I had a couple of bonus questions, one for the ladies and one for the guys. The first one was – What was Greg’s marathon time in the 2002 Columbus Marathon?… and the second – How many people were in Greg’s graduating class of a school district that spanned 1 square mile? Whoever came the closest to the number won a prize. These are the prize t-shirts I had for the guys and the girls. Oh, by the way, the answers are 2:57 and 63.
You guys…we had THE.BEST.TIME. I seriously recommend this kind of a party reguardless of the occasion. It was such a blast. Luckily, I had some friends helping me capture moments throughout the night because I’m suuuuper bad about that. Here you go.
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