Valentine’s Day Surprise is a homemade creative dinner. The dinner is made beforehand and served to you and your special someone. Afterward, you can exchange your Valentine’s Day gifts.
It uses elements from other dates that I have already mentioned here on my site. The basics of the date are a nice candlelight dinner set up in the home. The home is made to look like a restaurant. Then fancy menus are laid out in front of you. You have a friend or relative there to serve you.
This Valentine’s Day surprise date idea could work nicely with couples who have older kids. You could have them serve you. And while you are eating and dancing, they can be watching a movie in another room.
You could even make some homemade desserts for the evening. Maybe homemade peanut butter cups or strawberry napoleons. Check out my cooking blog, In the Kitchen with Matt, for some more great dessert recipes.
What you need for this romantic Valentine’s Day Surprise date idea:
The items needed for this type of date are listed for you below in the commentary.
My commentary on this romantic date idea:
My brother did this for his wife. He gave me this idea and it was really awesome and had some elements of my own creativity. So I decided to include it. In his own words he wrote:
“The “home” restaurant: I just did this for my wife for Valentine’s Day. I couldn’t get a reservation at a decent restaurant so I created a fancy restaurant at home. The nice China and fancy wine glasses were used. Cloth napkins, and flowers for a centerpiece and several candles for the “atmosphere” were also used.
I printed a dinner menu using fancy fonts and had everything prepared and ready to serve, or warming in the oven. The restaurant part went like this: I enlisted our 12 ½-year-old daughter to dress up and act as the hostess and our 11-year-old son to dress up and act as the waiter.
When my wife came down from upstairs, dressed for an evening out, I escorted her down the hall to the kitchen and our daughter greeted us as the hostess and seated us at the coffee table I had prepared earlier.
We sat on the floor, Japanese style, and then “our hostess” brought us the salads I had prepared in advance. Our son introduced himself as our waiter and brought sourdough rolls and real butter (restaurants always use real butter) to go with our salads.
When our salads were finished, our plates were cleared and the dinner was served (already prepared and warming in the oven). We ate and talked and with the food being served and taken care of, it really was like being in a restaurant.
Since it was Valentine’s, we exchanged cards and gifts and had a great time. We then went out to hit a movie, but the highlight was definitely the dinner “in.” Our son and daughter were great as hostess and waiter.
Roommates/friends can be used as a waiter/host if no children are old enough to help or if you don’t have any children. The whole thing cost less than $45 but would have cost double that in a restaurant, and been much less memorable.
I do recommend that before this is done, make sure you know how to cook the food. Fancy food like seafood and steaks work great for the home restaurant, but for the first-timer, it would be a bad time to experiment and over/undercook something for a big date.”
So if you are looking to wow your significant other this Valentine’s Day or for another special occasion try out this Valentine’s Day surprise romantic date idea.
Do you have experience with this date idea? Let me know in the comments how it went and if your date, spouse, significant other liked it. You can buy a copy of the book 101 Creative Dates: ideas, tips, and personal experiences from the life of a hopeless romantic here or visit the shop.
Here are other creative date ideas you might like: