Extra Halloween Costumes: The Why We Go All Out

We’re all about extra Halloween costumes, and there are great reasons why we go all out every Halloween! Here’s the story behind our yearly family Halloween costumes.

In my mind, every person who visits FridayWereInLove.com has been here for almost a decade, reading every post. But when I stop to think of it, there are so many posts I haven’t touched and don’t remember writing! I know it’s hit or miss for many people, and I know many of you come from Google and Pinterest and only see a few posts.

I recently had a close friend and a family member ask why we go all out for Halloween Costumes. It dawned on me that if they don’t know, it’s probably a mystery to most people.

Extra Halloween Costumes

When I shared how our Halloween costumes started with said friend, she suggested I write a blog post the day before our big reveal. Because extra Halloween costumes are our jam for great reasons! So, friends, tomorrow is the magical day. And here I am, telling you where our love of costumes comes from.

My family would all tell you that Halloween is my mom’s favorite holiday. She goes all out! I mean decorations, wearing orange and black and making sure we read all the Halloween books for kids. My love started there, and I’ve always enjoyed dressing up and festivities because of her.
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The Story Behind Our Annual Halloween Costume Tradition

When Jacob and I got married, I knew I wanted to start a tradition hosting Halloween parties for couples. We had a major fixer-upper as a first house, without much time to put into it. It had an awkward layout, and it made parties hard. But that didn’t stop us! We hosted a Halloween dinner party our first year married and had a blast!

The next year, one of our friends joined forces with their brother and sister-in-law to host a huge couples party. Most of our friends overlap and we opted to let them do the hard work and just show up!

I went with our normal Halloween routine, dressing up and having fun with Halloween costumes. That year our theme was PBS stars: Bob Ross and Julia Childs costumes. I honestly think it’s my favorite couple’s costume to this day! In fact, Jacob won the award for the best individual costume! This was quite an accomplishment because the party was huge, and everyone went all out with extra Halloween costumes that would impress anyone.

Making Extra Costumes a Tradition

The next year they decided to make it an annual party tradition. These friends are professional photographers and go all out! They are also some of our dearest friends, and we’re lucky enough to know we’ll make the invite list each year. But we also knew that dressing up for the annual Halloween costume party means going all out. Did I mention we’re dear friends for a great reason?! The obsession with Halloween is only one reason out of hundreds that we’re kindred spirits!

This has given us the excuse to find a great couple’s costume idea every year. It’s been something we would have done anyway, but the party took it up about a hundred notches!

Being Featured in Major Publications

In the past, we’ve shared our costume reveal on Halloween, right after the party. We’ve saved the costume for the party and the contests we’ve hoped to win. But the party has grown up as we’ve all had kids. We all still go all-out, but the competition died down several years ago.

Around the time the competitions died, we found my inbox with letters from major magazine editors asking if they could share them in Halloween content. I was floored, but several of our costumes have been shared in major publications! So if the party wasn’t enough, the audience we’ve gained who come back every year for our costumes alone has been amazing!

And note, they brought back competitions a few years later. We even won with our Guardians of the Galaxy costume complete with my Gamora costume green makeup from head to toe!

Why We Share Our Costumes a Week Early

You probably noticed I blog as a job as well. I always get messages that this is the favorite post of the year from so many of you. It’s my favorite too! When I decided to start hiring a professional photographer to capture our costumes, things grew even more. It’s been so fun to have so many people join in my love and passion!

That’s why I’ve switched from sharing on Halloween day to sharing a week early. If anyone wants to order those Amazon packages and create their own version, there’s a week to get it together.

If we didn’t have our party, we’d still do this as our favorite blog post. If we didn’t have the blog, we’d still do this just to be at the level of our friends at their annual costume party.

But the two things together have only given my obsession more excuse to go all out! So we will continue to share each year. And I’ll continue to balance the timing of plenty of space to help others find the items to recreate their own costume, and sharing close to our favorite party of the year too!

I can’t wait for tomorrow’s costume reveal post friends! Did I mention we flew on location for this year’s pictures? It’s as extra Halloween costume as it’s ever been and I can hardly contain myself!