My life's dream was to be a mama and be extra, especially when it comes to my kids. I have had Luke's first birthday party planned before he was even born lol. When it comes to parties and party planning, my family has it down to a
science.
We truly love celebrating others and having a mother who has more decor than you could imagine, made this so easy to execute. This may be long winded, but I want to walk you through the process of planning an event like this, where/how you can save $$$ and time management.
*these are my opinions and thought process on how I personally plan a party
Shop Luke's hat, banner, and custom sign below
Theme
When deciding on a theme, I wanted something that wouldn't require a ton of shopping for decor. Choosing an outdoors/mountain theme "WILD ONE" meant I could utilize some of my mom's Christmas decor. This truly cut down the amount of decor I would need. I took what I liked from her stash which was garland, pre-lit trees, and deer antlers and added neutral elements to cary on the theme.
Your theme should be present in every corner of the event. From the very beginning, we used a "WILD ONE" themed invitation. I like to use minted.com because of the quality of designs AND they have free addressing!
Decor
Speaking of theme, let's move on to decor. Like I mentioned above, we utilized quite a bit of Christmas decor to give the patio an outdoorsy feel. Recycling decor like this will help you stick with a budget. I also intentionally went with a neutral theme so we could use things like wooden cheese boards, picture frames we already owned, and even fabric that we would eventually have made into pillows.
If you can, choose a theme that resembles your home decor so you can source from your home and put your party budget towards catering + photographer (we did not hire a photographer for this party but will definitely be doing this in the future).
This may seem like a lot at first, but we started the decorating process the Friday before his party. I put together his balloon garland, refreshments table, sweets table, and food table with decor. Saturday I took another look at everything which sparked more ideas, so I had another day to tweak things and make it perfect. Come Sunday, the only thing there was to do was place the food in its designated spot. This makes "party day" stress free / you won't be scrambling to get everything done all at once.
Creating this backdrop was so fun (I mainly just told Dillon what to do) but it was pretty simple. Detailed blog post coming soon on how we did it! Balloons are from a DIY kit from Lushra.com
Rug linked here
Lanterns are from Canton but found similar ones here.
Baby's breath in small jars is an inexpensive way to fill space.
Stand + picture frame is from hobby lobby. "Lake Water" is lemonade with a few drops of green food coloring.
Catering
When hosting an event, consider the time of day when it comes to food. If it is right at noon, it is expected that lunch will be served. If it was earlier in the day, say 10:00am or later around 2:00pm, light appetizers would be appropriate. We had Luke's party at noon so we catered lunch for 45 guests.
Kroger is a great option when it comes to party platters, You can utilize their website to order sandwich trays from the deli. We ordered a tray of chicken salad sandwiches, an assorted tray of sandwiches, fruit tray and pinwheels. We also ordered 200 chicken nuggets from Chick-Fil-A. Although his party was Sunday, we had CFA give us the nuggets chilled in a dish so we could heat them on Sunday so they would be fresh for the party.
Each item had a note card (I designed them on canva.com) that had a name to carry on the theme. You can find the wooden card holders here.
Little details like mini menu cards add another element to carry on your theme.
Another tip I have when it comes to the food table is placement. I strategically placed the chicken nuggets at the end of the line so people would not stock pile them. I placed the sandwiches in the middle so people had plenty of time to put on their condiments of choice without holding up the line too long.
Unlike interior decorating, there is no room for negative space for a party. There is always an opportunity to put a personal touch in a blank space. I love adding framed pictures to a food table.
I purchased the appetizer tongs from hobby lobby but found a similar pair here.
Layering different textures like this neutral fabric from Hobby Lobby and this table scarf add so much more dimension to the table (and it matched Luke's birthday outfit) To add even more dimension, elevate your boards and tray with boxes/books. You can shop similar items below.
Sweets
If you are a first time mom, you may or may not know that getting two cakes is essential for a first birthday. One for baby and one for everyone else. Sweet Face Sugar Shoppe in Royse City, Texas is where I get all my cakes and custom cookies. Her cakes are so dang moist, I have nothing but good things to say about them! She is also amazing at custom cookies. I send her inspiration pictures and she blows me away every time!
Activities
I considered the age of the other children that would be in attendance when it came to some sort of activity. Because of Luke's age, it didn't make sense for me to spend money on a bounce house when my child wouldn't be able to participate. Circling back to theme again, I thought a trail mix bar would be a little activity both children and adults would enjoy.
All labels were designed by me using canva.com / this was super inexpensive, just some rolled down paper sacks + scoops from the dollar section!
The Pinterest Mom
If there's one thing I have learned about growing up with a Pinterest mom (before pinterest was a thing) is that it is not about being perfect. It's not about "look at me look what I can do". It's not about impressing others. It's about showing your love for others through a creative outlet. Doing things like this bring me so much joy. My mom and I had so much fun finding things for Luke's party! Acts of service is how I show my love for others, even if it's for a one year old who has no idea what's going on HA!.
Until the next party...
xoxo // madeline