Would you spend £15k on a party to celebrate yourself?
I’m standing at the top of a gilded staircase, wearing head-to-toe white, looking down at over 100 guests waiting expectantly below. I raise my glass – a bespoke grapefruit and Italicus cocktail – and finish off my speech. “Finally, I’d like to thank myself. Because if it wasn’t for me, none of this would have happened. So, I’d like to invite you all to raise a glass and drink … to me!”
This is not a wedding; it’s my book launch. I’ve never celebrated myself like this before, and it’s something I imagined I’d only ever do on my wedding day. But when I found myself recently single aged 31, after years of going to friends’ weddings, I decided I too wanted an occasion to bring all my loved ones together. I might not have any romantic love to celebrate, but I have plenty of personal and professional success, so why not throw myself the party I’ve always dreamt of?
That’s why I went all-out for the launch of my latest novel Thirty Things I Love About Myself – fittingly, a book that’s all about self-love. I hired out the downstairs area of Mayfair’s Jeru – a high-end Middle Eastern restaurant that felt suitably glamorous for the occasion, with its stone arches and private bar – and planned a bespoke menu of cocktails and impressive canapes. I invited family and friends from all walks of my life, even those who’d need to travel to attend, and asked them to RSVP months beforehand.
All my friends were instantly on board – “You so deserve to celebrate yourself properly” – while older relatives were slightly confused: “So, you’re having such a big party for … yourself?” But everyone made the effort to show up, and between mouthfuls of halloumi doughnuts and potato truffle bread, they all came up to me to say the same thing: “This party is incredible. We’re so proud of you.”
That celebration was one of the most important things I’ve ever done for myself, because I not only gave myself the validation that society saves for romantic love, but I did it in front of everyone I know. As Carrie Bradshaw famously says in Sex and the City, “If you’re single, after graduation, there isn’t one occasion where people celebrate you.”
That was almost two decades ago, and while it’s still true, things are slowly starting to change. Single women like myself are choosing to create their own occasions to celebrate themselves – whether it’s professional success, buying a new home, or simply taking stock of the fabulous lives they’ve created.
“I had a lot to celebrate aged 40,” says Lynsey Leaver, a management consultant who used her 40th as an opportunity to truly celebrate herself. “I was doing what I wanted, I had a great job, great friends, a great flat and I was really close to my family. I felt it was worth celebrating. The idea that you can only have that type of party for a wedding felt wrong to me. I was living my best life, so I chose me.”
Leaver, now 45, gave herself a budget of £10,000-£15,000. She hired an art gallery and private members’ bar in London, a DJ, a photographer, a professional catering company, a make-up artist for herself, her sister and mother beforehand, and personalised cake pops for dessert (Chanel handbags like her own, and Mr Bump because that’s what her friends nickname her).
“It became part of my executive assistant’s job to help me organise it,” she laughs. “I spent a lot of time choosing every detail because I wanted it to feel really ‘me’. My sister kept telling me to stop going over the top, so I’d order things and wouldn’t tell her. My parents thought having an open bar was too much, but I wanted to. You hear what people spend on weddings, and I wanted to bring all my worlds together and for everyone to have a great time.”
Her family travelled down from Manchester, while friends came from as far as Sheffield and Wales. “If I’d just had a dinner, people wouldn’t have travelled. But they all came and it was amazing. My friends loved my dad, my parents got to see my life here, and everyone had a great time. We stayed till they kicked us out at 1am.”
Leaver was happily single at the time, after calling off a previous engagement in her 30s, and it was important for her to celebrate herself as she was. “I think people judge single women and think their lives aren’t as important. If you haven’t got married or had kids, you’ve failed. But there is no way you could go to that party and think I was failing.”
For Emma Hughes, 35, a wedding has never been something she’s particularly interested in: “I’ve always said I may or may not get married, but I’ll never have a capital-W wedding. I was never the girl who daydreamed about her wedding, but I was the kind of girl who daydreamed about a book launch.”
When she achieved her dream of securing a deal for her book No Such Thing As Perfect, she instantly started saving up for the party. “I felt a bit embarrassed to talk about my plans for the launch. It felt self-indulgent, in a way it isn’t to talk about your hen-do plans. But everyone in my life understood this was a really big deal for me. I sent out physical invitations in the post with RSVPs. If someone had said, ‘It’s your book wedding!’ I’d say, ‘No, it’s my book launch.’ I don’t like linking everything to that model. This was a celebration in its own right.”
She was worried Covid would delay the party, but it managed to go ahead last August, in an al fresco bar in King’s Cross, with 70 guests, an open bar, canapes and an oyster cart. “It was really important for me to bring everyone in my life together, especially after being separated in the lockdowns. For many of us, it was our first party in two years. I was single at the time and wondered beforehand if I’d notice the absence of a partner, but I didn’t. I had all my favourite people in a room together and I was too busy enjoying myself.”
At one point, she went to the bathroom and took a selfie in the mirror, raising a glass to herself as a toast. “It was silly, but when I look at the photo I think, I did it! I got there!”
Psychologist Donna Dawson thinks these moments of self-belief are exactly why it’s so important for people to celebrate themselves like this. “This is a trend that needs to happen. It’s hard for single people to get affirmation, so I think anything that helps people get closer to that, and also to self-confidence and self-love, is really important.
“Some people will think it smacks of too much self-involvement, but that’s because it’s new territory. It’s up to us to create new inclusive celebrations for ourselves. People might not know how to react, but as more people do it, it will become more natural.”
For Sofia Berto, 30, and Elena Cenedese, 34, celebrating themselves was not something that came naturally. The two photographers set up their business S.E.B.C Photography over three years ago, and after hiring a business coach in lockdown, realised they’d spent much of that time focusing on the negatives rather than the positives.
“The coach made us see that we never stopped to celebrate our victories because we were so focused on continuing to grow the company,” explains Cenedese. “So we decided to use the third anniversary of our business as an opportunity to really celebrate what we’ve achieved, and to go big.’”
They decided to throw a large garden party last spring, inviting 60 guests, including relatives from Italy, and organising a wine tasting for the night. “We wanted to involve other people in celebrating what we’d done because it makes it more real,” says Berto. “We always celebrate the big things in life like graduation and marriage, and this business is one of the biggest things in our lives, so why not celebrate this as well?”
Neither of them is married, and they wanted to show their friends and family their own version of success. “Marriage isn’t the only achievement,” says Cenedese. “Our business is like having a child. It’s that important for us. And it meant a lot to have our family fly over to support us. It also made them really recognise what we’ve achieved.”
“There were times when we were organising it that we thought, what are we doing? Will people think we’re crazy?” admits Berto. “But now, we’re so glad we did it. It made us feel more confident, and more positive about the future. It’s given us more energy to keep believing in ourselves, and it’s something we’d love to do again. We’re already looking forward to commemorating our next successes, and hopefully we inspire others to do the same. There’s nothing like having a party purely to celebrate yourself.”
