I think most people realise that very few children (hey you never know right?) remember their first birthday party, generally speaking the party is more for the family and the parents to celebrate one whole year of life, the momentous event that occurred exactly 365 earlier. It’s nice to celebrate that fact with a bit of effort and hopefully some nice pictures to show later. I was therefor pretty excited to be hosting a neat little party and I must say some of the things you can get hold of for babies parties – just adorable!
For Ariella’s birthday I started where I always start when I’m planning an event or an idea, Pinterest. Starting with a theme or at least a set of colours is a great plan and worked well for me. I always find consistency is key, so we had neat little invites designed – first impressions always good sets the day. For Ariella I picked mint green, baby pink and gold I then tried to incorporate this into the plan of the room later. Along side this picking the type of day was important, given the more casual feel we went with a tea party theme.
So I had my theme and my colours, I probably should have put a bit more effort to plan ahead as many things were definitely rushed and I feel
had I put in more effort prior to the run up then I could have created something even more interesting. But I did know one thing, I wanted to make the cake or at least one of them. I’m really no baker but it was great fun, I probably tried about three times and I’m happy to say the test runs were eaten by myself and my husband. I’m not sure that’s such a good thing for us but at least he was happy to put in the effort to hide the evidence of my poor attempts.
Given I had decided on a tea party theme, it was only fitting that I scout out a few items that fit. So I procured my first cupcake stand, along with a neat modern looking cake stand which I knew I could use again once her birthday was over. I really wish we could have had her birthday in our new home but the timings just did not work out and we had to have it a much less open, sociable space. I think we coped ok, I decided to opt for a food coffee table as the kitchen was on a different level to the living area (seriously really hard work when you have small hungry little ones to feed). Anyway I was pleased that the items I had bought were in most part reusable elsewhere which I think it’s a great idea if you can manage it. I kept the little paper decorations too as I think I can make use of those for a summer garden party later!
I picked the cake from a recipe online by Simple Bites, although Ariella had the full blown sugar edition which was pretty funny since she had only had a single spoon of nutella up to that point. I’m sure if you are a baking goddess you’d be able to whip this baby up in no time however for me, a challenge! I didn’t add my ah hem “concentration” face while trying to ice the bad boy because frankly it’s just not pretty. But I can assure you there was serious cake pressure going on.
Back to the main event, the first birthday party it was lovely and it was very casual and had a short guest list which turned out to be a great number for the room. Ariella wasn’t overwhelmed unlike Christmas and was able to be an absolute diamond for the day. She had just started to stand up much more reliably which was a great party trick and opened her for some nice dance moves.
Food wise I opted for some great backup sweet treats from The English Cheesecake Company for the cupcake stand these went down great. Little cheesecake cupcakes, I knew if the cake I was making went badly wrong then these were sure to be a crowd pleaser.
I hadn’t expect the day to hold so much significance to me, after her first birthday she seemed suddenly older than before. I don’t know exactly why, whether it just happened to correspond with her development but all I know is that after one year over night she had transitioned from baby to toddler.
I took a little time to decide on her outfit in the end I opted for a dress which I think she really liked, as much as she can tell me anyway but it was soft and she generally speaking prefers to wear soft materials. Again it was something she could wear in the months that followed and was season appropriate. I had to take a bit of a guess on the sizing because Ariella is so tall, part of it I think was just luck and helpful overestimations on my part. I really don’t like making wasteful purchases where I can help it, even the table runner was used in our new kitchen and matches perfectly with the feature wall.
I’m eagerly looking forward to her next birthday party which oddly does not feel like too long away! It was lovely to celebrate the day she was born and a great reminder the year before.
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