‘I love Costco!’: B.C. woman surprises husband with big box birthday party

A B.C. man was surprised by his wife on Tuesday with a birthday party to remember.
Karissa Reynolds saw a trend on TikTok, where someone plans a surprise party at Costco and invites their loved one’s friends and family to show up at the same time.
Her husband, Aaron, was oblivious to the fact that his wife arranged for his family and friends to show up at the store in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island — seemingly randomly.
“I’d love to say that I was planning this months in advance, but it was really just the week before,” Karissa told Global News.
“I drew a map of Costco and I sent it to all our friends and family, and I made sure that they were all standing a little bit farther apart. We’re lucky our friends and family are awesome and they just weren’t doing anything the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. So they all came last minute, (it) was great.”
Karissa said Aaron made it through about 20 people before he clued into what was going on.
“The people that he was running into were trying to act surprised when he continued to list ‘(There’s) my mom, my dad, my siblings, my grandparents are here’,” she added.
“And I even had a birthday cake and paper plates that I bought from Costco in the cart. But he still did not notice at this point in time.”
Once Aaron realized what was going on, he was overjoyed so many people made his birthday a memorable one.
“It’s so funny to look back on now because it seems so obvious but I was just so swept up in the moment of it and I love Costco and I love running into people,” Aaron said.
Store staff were not aware of the surprise but came over to see what was going on when they heard people laughing.
Aaron got a birthday dinner of Costco hot dogs, pizza, french fries and the staff let them purchase a carrot cake and eat it in the food area.
“We all got our grocery shopping done at the same time, which is very convenient,” Karissa joked.