If you are excited to learn the gender of your baby with family and friends then you will love these gender reveal ideas. Whether you are looking for simple and affordable gender reveal ideas or something more unique and extravagant we’ve got you covered. In this post, you will find both simple and small gender reveal ideas along with extravagant, unique, and cool ideas as well.
When Gender Reveal Ideas Became Popular
Finding out the gender of your baby before they were born hasn’t always been an option, but it has been for decades. However, throwing a party to announce the gender of your baby or even just finding out in a fancy way instead of during an ultrasound is still a pretty new idea.
Gender reveals became popularized about 10-15 years ago, and have only grown from there. Jenna Karvunidis is credited with starting the trend online in 2008 by cutting open a white cake that was pink inside to share the gender of her baby with family, friends, and followers.
Since then, gender reveals have grown to become absolutely enormously extravagant events. With the popularization of social media, gender reveals have gotten pretty fancy.
But just because the influencers pull off huge gender reveals with balloon towers and fireworks, doesn’t mean you have to go that big to join in on the exciting festivities of hosting your own gender reveal. There are a lot of simple gender reveal ideas that are perfect to do for your other kids, with a small family group over dinner, or even at a small party.
Today I’ll be sharing some photos and videos to inspire your own gender reveal party. I hope you find the perfect idea to copy to share in your excitement with family or friends about which gender baby you are expecting.
Tips to Set Up Your Gender Reveal Idea
The first thing to decide is who is going to know the gender ahead of time. Someone has to know to set up the gender reveal. There are multiple ways to go about this though.
If you pay for a 3D ultrasound to find out the gender, most of those places have some gender reveal supplies like colored smoke bombs or confetti cannons for sale right in their front room. If you want only the ultrasound technician to know, they can pick out the correct smoke bomb or confetti cannon for you and you’ll have everything you need for your gender reveal from one place.
If you want to use an idea other than colored smoke bombs or confetti cannons, you can have your ultrasound technician write down the gender of your baby and place it into an envelope and then you can bring it to whoever is going to help you set up the surprise.
For example, you can bring the secret-toting envelope to a baker to have them bake a cake that is either pink or blue inside, bake cupcakes with pink or blue frosting inside, or bake a cake filled with colored candy that spills out in the appropriate color.
You can also bring the super-secret envelope to your local party store, like Party City, and the balloon team will fill up an oversized black balloon with colored confetti for you or they’ll fill up a giant box if you provide it with the correct color of balloons filled with helium so that they fly out when you open the box.
There is even a chance you and your partner, or a close family member, can be the ones to know the gender and set up the reveal. Perhaps you just want to do a gender reveal and record it for your other children, then yourself, or maybe a grandma could be the one to know.
12 Simple and Small Gender Reveal Ideas
Gender reveals have gotten bigger and bigger the longer they have been around. But if you think the idea is really fun and special and something you’d like to participate in, but are completely turned off by the over-the-top balloon tower and fireworks type of reveals, that’s ok. This is the gender reveal idea section for you. Or maybe you want to throw a gender reveal party on a budget, this is your section too.
You can have a fun and memorable party, a special time with your partner, or make a cute video to share on social media (or all of the above) with one of these traditional and more simple and easy-to-pull-off gender reveal ideas.
Confetti Cannons
From @GenderRevealCelebrations
You can pick up cannons that shoot confetti in either pink or blue online, in your local party store, or at 3d ultrasound shops.
Smoke Bombs
If you don’t feel like picking up a ton of pink or blue confetti after revealing the gender of your baby, maybe you’d prefer a smoke bomb instead. You can get them at all the same places.
Confetti Cannon and Smoke Bomb Combo
From @GenderRevealIdeas
If you want to jazz up your reveal a bit extra, consider buying both a smoke bomb and a confetti cannon. You can set off one, while your partner sets off the other.
Color Filled Cupcakes
Bring the sealed gender of your baby to your local baker and they can shoot some colored frosting inside of neutral-colored cupcakes for you. When you bite into the cupcakes, the gender will be revealed.
Oversized Black Balloon with Colored Confetti
You can pick up 36″ black balloons at your local party store or online. You’ll also need to get confetti in both colors. Bring the items and the sealed envelope with the baby’s gender to the balloon counter at Party City or even a local grocery store that fills balloons with helium.
Explain that you would like the correct color of confetti placed into the balloon and have it filled with helium and tied with neutral-colored strings. Ask them to either place the extra confetti in a sealed bag, have them keep it, or have them toss it so you don’t know what’s in the balloon.
If you choose to have this set up at a party store they are quite used to doing this and will be happy to help. You can usually bring them both colors of confetti from within the store and they will just charge you for the color they used after filling your balloon. That way you don’t have to buy both. Be sure not to choose any confetti with sharp edges, or there’s a good chance you’ll find out the gender unexpectedly!
Balloon Filled Box
Bring a large box to your local party store along with both pink and blue balloons. It can be a plain shipping box or you can cover it in wrapping paper (so that it still opens) beforehand. The employees at the balloon counter will be more than happy to build your surprise for you.
If you are setting this up for yourself be sure to either put the balloons on weights or tie them to strings attached to the inside of the box so that they don’t fly away into the air and litter the atmosphere and later the ground.
The Original: Colored Cake
The first gender reveal that started the huge trend was just like this one. Bring the baby’s gender to your local baker and they will put neutral-colored frosting on the outside and colored cake inside that lets you know the gender of the baby. When you cut into the cake… surprise!
Candy-Filled Cake
Instead of simply adding colored cake inside neutral frosting, some bakers now offer the option of putting colored candy in the middle of their cakes. As you cut into the cake, pink or blue candy tumbles out.
Raining Umbrella
From @GenderRevealIdeas
Have a friend, family member, or photographer fill a black umbrella with feathers or even confetti in pink or blue. When your partner and you raise the umbrella over your heads, open it quickly to reveal a shower of pink or blue.
Squirt Gun Fight
From @GenderRevealIdeas
Have a friend or family member fill squirt guns with either pink or blue-colored water. For the reveal, you and your partner should wear white, and then spray each other at the same time to reveal the gender of the baby.
Fire Extinguisher Color Blaster
From @GenderRevealIdeas
You can buy fire extinguisher color blasters in pink or blue online for an even more impressive explosion of color than a smoke bomb or confetti cannon.
Paint Dad’s Hands a Surprise Color
From @GenderRevealIdeas
Have dad paint his hands (or another family member can while he closes his eyes if he wants to be surprised too) while mom closes her eyes. Mom-to-be needs to wear a white shirt. Hubby holds her from behind and places his hands in a heart shape on her stomach. When he removes his hands, you’ll be left with the gender reveal and a sweet memento.
15 Extravagant and Unique Gender Reveal Ideas
If you want to break away from simple and traditional gender reveal ideas, this is the section for you to browse! Some of these gender reveal ideas take a new spin on the above ideas, such as a holiday related twist, while others are completely unique.
If you want a fresh new gender reveal idea or something that is bigger and better than you’ve seen before you’ll find it here.
Smoke Bomb From a Car
You can actually buy chalk for your tires so that you can do your own gender reveal burnout. Perfect for car enthusiasts.
Smoke Bomb Out of a Pumpkin
If you get to host your gender reveal in Autumn, consider setting off your smoke bomb inside of a big pumpkin for a holiday-themed party.
Smoke Bomb Out of a Cauldron
If your gender reveal party is in October, perhaps host a Halloween party and set off a smoke bomb inside of a cauldron for a spooky reveal.
Science Experiment
From @GenderRevealIdeas
Is your partner or yourself super into science? You can set up a chemistry experiment that reveals the gender with an overflow of colored bubbles.
Baseball Smoke Bombs
If you or your spouse are baseball fans, you can now buy smoke bomb baseballs in pink or blue. You can either set up a tee for an older sibling to swing at, or pitch the ball to dad so he can smack one out of the park.
Battle of the Genders
From @GenderRevealIdeas
Hire some folks or have two family members dress up in big inflatable baby costumes. The boy and girl baby get to wrestle until only the winning gender remains.
A Wardrobe of Surprises
From @GenderRevealIdeas
If you have a devoted family member that you trust knowing the gender, have them set up an entire little girl or boy’s wardrobe. Colored balloons can also fly out when the sweet wardrobe is revealed.
Balloons, Confetti, and More
From @GenderRevealIdeas
Popping one giant balloon isn’t enough for you? Consider a bigger and better setup like this with confetti, colored balloons, balloon towers, and more!
Big Baby Tug-o-War
From @GenderRevealIdeas
If you don’t want to hire two big babies to wrestle, consider having them do a tug of war! It can be a ridiculously silly and entertaining show to watch.
Let Your Pet Share the News
From @GenderRevealIdeas
If your fur baby is your first baby, why not involve them in the gender reveal idea? Let your dog or cat carry the envelope with the big news in it and deliver it to mom and dad.
Motorcycle Burnout
From @GenderRevealIdeas
Much like the car burnout, if you or your spouse is a motorcycle lover, you can buy a burnout chalk kit for your motorcycle instead.
Gender Reveal Soccer Ball
From @GenderRevealIdeas
Much like the smoke bomb baseball you saw above, they are available in little soccer balls to for the futbol lover.
Tic-Tac-Toe Gender Reveal
From @GenderRevealIdeas
For a fun game and a more drawn-out and suspenseful gender reveal, try one of these tic-tac-toe games.
Open Up a Seashell
From @GenderRevealIdeas
If you are planning a summertime gender reveal party, consider copying this under-the-sea theme. This is a very unique reveal idea.
Use a Helicopter
From @GenderRevealIdeas
For the biggest and best gender reveal ideas, let a helicopter blow out the colored smoke so that everyone below can see! This is most often done at vacation destinations where you can pay to go on helicopter tours. Instead of taking the ride yourself, pay them to shoot off a smoke bomb for you.