After the exhaustive effort that nurses put into nursing school, they have earned the opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments. And what better way to celebrate than to throw an awesome nurse graduation party! To ease your planning load, we’ve compiled 30 inspiring ideas to help you throw the best nursing graduation party ever!
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30 Nurse Graduation Party Ideas
Graduation Party Invitations
Once you’ve decided on the logistics of the party, like the guest list, the when and the where, your next big decision is the nurse graduation party invitations. Now, while any old invitation will get the important details across to your friends and family, your nurse graduation party is a special event, and you want your invite to reflect this.
A good starting point is to use nursing symbols, like the Royal Nurse (RN) symbol used in all three of our top picks. Each invite plays around with this symbol, adding style through color, glitter, and innovative designs. The color theme, in general, is another chance to make a statement.
We like gold, blush pink and white as these colors ooze sophistication. If you’re after something pretty, the gold leaf and flowers add a touch of glamour to the invites. If simplicity is more your thing, but without wanting to lose style, the BSN invites are a classy choice.
If you’re feeling creative, why not instant download a nurse graduation party invitation template and customize it to suit the guest of honor!
Our Top 3 Picks
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Best Overall
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Decorations
How to decorate the nursing graduation party space is the next thing on your to-do list. The trick is to not go overboard with the decorations while highlighting this important milestone. We recommend a mix of traditional decorations, like banners, tassels, and balloons, along with some more fun and novel nursing themed ones.
You can never go wrong with a personalized congratulations banner. Something along the lines of ‘Congrats Nurse Jackie’ will work well as a beautiful party centerpiece. We recommend keeping the color theme similar to that of the invitations, in this case, gold. Paper straws adorned with nursing caps, which also fit in well with the gold color theme, will add a touch of class to the graduation party decor. And the medically themed food tent labels are a great addition, bringing a bit of light-hearted humor to the occasion. Remember, it’s the little touches that can make the party!
Our Top 3 Picks
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Related: Complete the Look with These 6 Nursing Pins
Party Favors
When it comes to nursing graduation party ideas, medically themed favors are a must! Favors are a great opportunity for gag gifts and you can have a lot of fun with the nursing theme. However. if you’ve got a lot of guests, you want to find a hassle-free option, nothing too fiddly. Favors like nursing themed candy bars always keep the guests happy and are simple to create.
The nurse graduation party sticker labels are a pretty versatile choice. They are the perfect fit for Hershey’s Kisses or on any similar sized item and are easy to put together and personalize.
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Food and Treats
See this cake pop recipe
You can be playful and humorous when it comes to the food and treats for your nurse graduation party. Whether you home make the food or buy it from the shops, the trick is to keep that medical theme burning bright. How far you go with this is your choice, but you can always use medical supplies to add to the humor. Using the food tent labels we recommend in the decorations section to go alongside your culinary treats would also work well, or you can make your own.
We love cake pops. They’re simple and easy to make and they look like cotton swabs, so they’d work well alongside this food tent label. Pretzel bones are another of our recommendations. Again, straightforward to make, and only require 3 ingredients.
Perhaps a customized placard alongside that reads “I hope you find this humerus…” Lastly, you can’t go wrong with dips. We’ve picked guacamole, which you could serve up with chips in a bedpan – a new one of course!
Our Top 3 Picks
Related: Finish the Look with These Top Nurse Scrub Dress Picks
Venues
When it comes to picking a venue for your nursing graduation party, an important factor you need to consider is your budget. Figures suggest that the average spend when throwing a graduation party is $985, and how much you spend on your venue can make a big difference to this price.
If you’re on a tight budget, consider having it at your house. Your backyard could make the ideal location, especially in the summer months, and it provides a more ‘open house’ kind of party, where guests can come and go as they please. If you don’t have the space to accommodate all the guests in your backyard, a community room decked out with all your fabulous decorations wouldn’t break the bank. However, if you’re happy to splash the cash, why not consider a banquet hall. You only graduate as a nurse once!
Our Top 3 Picks
- Budget: In your backyard
- Budget: Community room
- Splurge: Banquet hall
Beverages
Similar to the food and treats, you can have some fun with the beverages at your nurse graduation party and inject some medically themed humor into the occasion. This could be in the form of names for your drinks (the tent labels from the decorations section would come in handy here), or the containers your drinks come in – think medical supplies…
Punch is always a good option, whether alcoholic or not, as it’s easy to make a big vat of it up. You can play around with the flavors and colors and then add some amusing corresponding labels. We like ‘urine sample’ or ‘blood’ to go alongside the right colored liquid! IV drips are another of our top picks. This medical supply serves well as a drinking vessel filled with liquids of your choice and adds a novelty factor to the occasion.
Blood Bags for Drinks, 10 IV Bags for Party Props
These make for a great medical-themed party!
Lastly, we recommend some nursing graduation party wine bottle labels, which offer a simple and easy way to customize beverages to the medical theme.
Our Top Picks
Cake
The cake is a pretty big deal on any special occasion, and at a nursing graduation party, it’s no different. You have two options here, depending on your culinary skills. Either you could be brave and make a homemade cake, or you could pop into your local bakery and ask them to make you one. As with all the other party paraphernalia, a nursing themed cake is the way to go.
We chose our first pick as it incorporates many of the nursing themes – bandaids, heartbeat, stethoscope, pills – as well as having the space to personalize to the nursing graduate.
Our next pick is similar with its nursing themes but offers a three-tier choice, which is a good option if you have lots of guests. We also like the RN symbol on this cake, as it ties in well with the invites.
Lastly, if you’re after something a bit different, why not go with a lifelike scrubs cake. It’s a more novel choice and would be sure to make a statement.
Our Top 3 Picks
- Custom Designed Nursing Graduation Cake
- Three-Tier Nursing Graduation Cake
- Scrubs Nursing Graduation Cake
Centerpiece
Every special occasion benefits from a great centerpiece, so it’s something to think about when considering your nurse grad party supplies. Personalizing your nurse graduation party centerpiece is key to getting this decoration right, and like all the other party items, customizing it with a nursing theme is the way to go. Flowers make excellent nurse graduation party centerpieces, especially when you stick with the red and white nursing colors, and it looks stunning when you mix and match various types of flowers together, like red roses and white carnations.
Adding something more personalized to the bouquet can then make the centerpiece even more special. We like the simplicity of the heartbeat within a red heart or the nursing hat with the red jeweled cross.
The nursing graduation sticks, made of glitter card stock and featuring a range of nursing illustrations, also make a great addition.
These sticks can be personalized with the graduate’s name and you can choose a color to keep in theme with the other decorations, like gold.
Our Top 3 Picks
Nurse Graduation Party – Final Words
The pressure of throwing the best nursing graduation party can be pretty daunting, especially for those of you not looking to spend a fortune. There are plenty of ideas and hacks out there to help you budget for the party, while still allowing everyone to celebrate in style. At the end of the day, as long as the graduate and their guests have fun, you’ve nailed it!
