Life is full of special occasions that might call for celebration. But one, particularly modern trend is to create a lot of fanfare about announcing the gender of one’s unborn child. It seems like not even a whole month goes by without fire, injuries, or a combination of the two. 

We’ve gathered perhaps the worst examples of gender reveal parties where something went horribly wrong. From too much enthusiasm mixed with too little safety to terrible ideas with even worse execution, get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites, and be sure to share your own thoughts and experiences below. 

#1 There Was An Attempt To Have A Gender Reveal

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#2 Chocolate: Boy, Strawberry: Girl. There Is Only One Baby And I See Two Flavors

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#3 This Was Supposed To Be My Gender Reveal For The Grandparents. Total Flop, Should Read "It's A Boy", But Domino's Apparently Doesn't Know How To Place Pepperonis Close Together

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While they remain relatively popular, we are at the point where many people associate gender reveal parties with nothing but chaos, accidents, and disaster. At best, they are often tacky, somewhat unnecessary, and contain the most blatant “gendered” examples of things you have ever seen, from "Guns or Glitter" to "Pistols or Pearls."

At worst, the list goes on and on and on. For example, one 2017 gender reveal party gone wrong in Arizona caused a 46,991-acre wildfire. For whatever reason, the expecting parents wanted to celebrate sharing their child’s gender using explosives. 

#4 So This Was Supposed To Be The Gender Reveal, But Somehow The "Gender Reveal" Part Got Left Out, And Typical For My Husband, He Ate The Cupcake Whole Not Even Noticing The Pink Cream Center

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#5 Gender Reveal Surprise

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#6 When You Order The Gender Reveal Cake From The Babushka At The Russian Bakery

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A key issue is people going overboard. In general, it can be thoughtful to do something special for those unique life experiences, even if your plan isn’t the best formulated out there. But for one reason or another, gender reveal parties seem to come with a sort of arms race among parents who want to outdo each other. 

#7 Gender Reveal Cake Fail

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#8 How Wrong Could A Gender Reveal Go?

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#9 Everybody Makes Mistakes

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Even worse, this destruction and injuries aren’t necessarily limited to the participants. The aforementioned Arizona fire isn’t even the sole gender-reveal-party-wildfire. The El Dorado Fire that destroyed parts of San Bernardino and Riverside in California was caused by, you guessed it, a smoke bomb lighting dry grass on fire. 

#10 Let's Do The Reveal Inside. What's The Worst That Can Happen? The Aftermath Was Crazy 

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#11 Sister Had A Gender Reveal At A Club. I Can't Tell If They're Just Dumb Or Screwed-Up And Didn't Bother To Fix It

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#12 My Friend's Family Wore The Colors Of The Gender They Preferred For The New Baby

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#13 Husband Surprised Me With Pity Party Gender Reveal. Cake Makes Everything Better

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#14 My Friend Had A Gender Reveal Party... I Hope

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#15 According To This Gender-Reveal Lasagna, The Baby's Gone Bad

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#16 He Or She? We Don’t Know Either. Mislabeled Streamers Lead To A Confusing Gender Reveal! This Is Something We Won’t Forget. It’s A Girl

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#17 Congrats! It's A Girl

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#18 My Wife And I Cut Into Our Gender Reveal Cake Today. The Baby Is?

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#19 Gender Reveal Epic Win Or Fail?

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#20 We Found Out At Our 32-Week Growth Scan That Our Little Girl Was Actually A Little Boy

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#21 My Toddler Stuck Her Finger In The Cake So We Could See The Color Inside

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#22 My Dad Thought My Brother’s Gender Reveal Party Was Him Coming Out As Transgender

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#23 Cara And I Are So Excited To Announce Another Workman Boy Is On The Way. He Will Be Here In September And We Can’t Wait To Meet Him. Epic Gender Reveal Fail Caught. Treat Yourselves

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#24 The Gender Reveal Balloon Was Missed

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#25 I'm Not Sure If I Was More Shocked To See A Blank Gender Reveal Cake Or That I’m Going To Be An All-Boy Mom. Fail On Bakery, Have Receipt That Says "Blue Icing"

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#26 Gender Reveal Parties In The South

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#27 Gender Reveal Fail. It Went For The Camera

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#28 Well, It Was An Epic Gender Reveal, That's For Sure. This One Will Go Down In Family Story Books And Will Be Retold For Years To Come. It Was Almost Like "Tractors Or Bows"

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#29 Well, Actually, It's A Girl

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#30 Our Baby Gender Reveal Fail. It Popped Right In The Nuts

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#31 Gender Reveal Gone Wrong. We Ordered A Strawberry Cake, Just Like We Did For My First Daughter's Reveal. This One Was White

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#32 Sorry Folks

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#33 I Just Came For The Cake

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#34 Gender Reveal Lasagna

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#35 It's Supposed To Be A Pumpkin For A Gender Reveal

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#36 At That Moment, I Almost Started Crying

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#37 Before Finding Out He Was Getting A Baby Sister And After. Hopefully, We Will Get Him To Warm Up To The Idea Before She Gets Here

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#38 It Didn't Pop

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#39 I Had A Welt On My Leg For Most Of The Pregnancy

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#40 Gender Reveal Fireworks Fail Sends People Screaming