Hamilton costume ideas for the whole family

I love getting festive for all holidays, but my favorite holiday is Halloween. The #FabFam loves creating our family Halloween costume each year (see some of our family Halloween costume ideas from years past in this post). As October approaches each year, our family costume planning becomes a nightly dinner topic. Since Halloween is going to be a little different this year (we are going to skip trick-or-treating and do a candy scavenger hunt around the house instead), we decided to make it more festive and fun than ever. For example, we decided to do not one, not two, but multiple Halloween costumes this year to have even more fun leading up to the holiday! And why the heck not? Anything we can do to make Halloween in quarantine more fun, amiright? We have narrowed down our family Halloween costume ideas to some of our current favorite things, and we’ll be debuting them all in the weeks ahead. Today we’re sharing our family Hamilton costume ideas! Since Hamilton: An American Musical debuted on Disney+ at the beginning of July, we’ve become rather obsessed #HamilFans. We absolutely love this new way of telling a story about history. The cast is so talented, and we’re so proud of our Puerto Rican brother, Lin-Manuel Miranda, for bringing to life this musical and visual masterpiece while also creating incredible theatre roles for people of color. We’ve watched it more times than I can count; anytime someone in the family suggests putting on the movie or soundtrack, I just don’t know how to say no to this. I’m pretty helpless, actually. In fact, I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied. So when the fam said they were into the idea of a group Hamilton costume, I was not throwing away my shot. OK, you get the point :). Our family of four decided to be Alexander Hamilton, Marquis de Lafayette, John Laurens, and Hercules Mulligan so that we can “raise a glass to the four of us.” Our costumes use a combo of store-bought (for a shortcut) and some DIY (to give the costumes some simple upgrades). Here’s everything you need to make a DIY Hamilton costume, kid’s Hamilton costume, and even a women’s Alexander Hamilton costume!

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Alexander Hamilton costume for adults

While our family wanted to specifically be Hamilton, Laurens, Lafayette, and Mulligan, our costumes are very similar. My husband’s Hercules Mulligan costume is this Patriotic Man Adult Costume from Amazon plus a beanie hat. My costume, the 10 dollar Founding Father without a father himself, A. Ham, is this Women’s Colonial Patriot Costume from Amazon. Both of our costumes were of surprisingly good quality. They include the pants, vest, jacket, and neck jabot. If you get this Alexander Hamilton costume you will need to have your own white button-up shirt to wear underneath (if you need to buy one something like this with extra long sleeves and ruffled cuffs are perfect), and your own tall black boots.

Kid’s Hamilton costume

Sawyer’s favorite character in Hamilton is Lafayette, so that’s who he chose for his Alexander Hamilton kid’s costume. Grayson chose to be John Laurens, as he loves that Anthony Ramos is also Puerto Rican like us. The kid’s Hamilton costume we got wasn’t the same quality as the Alexander Hamilton costumes we found for the adults. We got George Washington Children’s Costumes from Amazon (available here in Small, Medium, and Large, and here in Extra Large), but decided to add a few upgrades so that the Alexander Hamilton kid’s costume would match the quality of the adult versions. We also added these costume boot covers for the kids since they didn’t have tall black boots. Here’s what we did for the kid’s DIY Hamilton costume.

The biggest impact for this DIY Hamilton costume was to add buttons. I got a few packs of these buttons from Amazon:

The pack comes with a combination of larger and smaller buttons. I used the smaller buttons to sew over the fake printed buttons on the vest, then used the larger buttons to add a row of buttons on the lapels of the jacket. I also folded the lapels outward and tacked them down so the jackets for the kid’s costumes looked more like our adult costumes.

This small change made a huge impact on each kid’s Hamilton costume.

As the Alexander Hamilton kid’s costume also didn’t include a long-sleeve white undershirt, I decided to DIY some ruffled cuffs to sew inside the sleeves. I used parts of old white pillowcases to make them.

Using the edges of old pillowcases made this DIY Hamilton costume hack quick and easy since I didn’t need to finish any hems. I just cut off the edge of the pillow case and folded them like ruffles, then tacked them on the inside of the sleeve cuff. If you’d prefer not to DIY, you can buy separate jabot and ruffle cuff sets from Amazon as well. This would also help you upgrade the neck jabot on the kid’s Hamilton costume, since it only came with a simple one built into the vest piece.

Fun Hamilton costume ideas

You can’t do Hamilton costumes without a little family Hamilton cosplay! I recommend putting on the soundtrack (or #HamilFilm on Disney+) when you try on your costumes and reenact your favorite scenes. Sawyer and I (as Lafayette and Hamilton) had to act out the iconic “immigrants, we get the job done” line, and he did his best attempt at Daveed Diggs’ “Guns and Ships” rap while doing Fortnite dances. I had to do a little video imitating Lin-Manuel Miranda’s fun coattail flip from “Non-Stop,” and take this picture of the moment Hamilton is chosen for the Constitutional Convention. Of course, the four of us sang and raised a glass together for “The Story of Tonight.” I may not live to see our glory, but I will gladly join the fight, and when our children tell our story, they’ll tell the story of tonight. What poignant lyrics for today! Raise a glass to freedom. Tomorrow there’ll be more of us. I’m sure our children will tell the story of tonight.

Are you a #HamilFan, too? Who’s your favorite character from the musical?

More family Halloween costume ideas:

• Easy and fun family Halloween costume ideas
• DIY Loki Variant Halloween Costumes (Family Loki Cosplay)
• DIY Mandalorian Halloween costumes
• DIY Stranger Things 3 family Halloween costumes
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens Family Halloween Costumes
• Family Harry Potter Halloween Costumes
• Like and Subscribe! DIY YouTuber Halloween Costumes for the Whole Family
• Super Easy DIY Lego Movie Halloween Costumes for the Whole Family
• DIY Despicable Me 2 Halloween Costumes

More Halloween ideas:

• Easy, kid-friendly Halloween food ideas
• Easy Halloween food idea: Spooky Spaghetti
• Fun Halloween Recipe for Kids – Spooky Spider Hot Dogs
• Halloween-Themed Birthday Party (in April)
• Dessert Recipes for Your Leftover Halloween Candy
• Snickers Brownies recipe (great for using up that leftover Halloween candy)
• Easy DIY Pokémon Pumpkins
• A bewitching Halloween party costume