Philadelphia Nesties
Amerbutt81
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First birthday parties
I know there was a huge baby boom on this board in September/October, so we have a bunch of first birthdays coming up. My question to everyone (and those with older kids): do you find the guest list getting out of control? I've got 60 people! I think I have to separate this into two parties, family in the afternoon and friends in the evening.
Bonus round: can we discuss themes? I found it only fitting we do a monster theme for our little monster.
Re: First birthday parties
We did an open house because the amount of people seem overwhelming!
In a word? Yes. I have close to 70. We are having it early in the afternoon at a park near our place, as our little apartment will not hold the small wedding sized guest list we have invited.
Our theme is the classic Mickey Mouse. My big project is to make these (via Pinterest) because I am the least crafty person on the planet.
I think the open house is a great idea. That way, friends and family can come whenever they want. You can do the cake at a central time and whoever is there, is there (obviously, make sure people know when you are cutting the cake so no one gets mad if they miss it. The things people get mad over). If I recall, your son was born in the beginning of October, so the weather should still be great. Plus, if you have a decent sized yard, you can take advantage of that.
I am already dreading such events. Our LO is due February 28. Our house is 2 x 2, so anything at home is out. I was going over in my mind our options for the christening (I am a dorky planner type) and that is probably going to cost us a small fortune and our guest list isn't even that big. And heaven forbid we just take parents and godparents out to lunch- DHs siblings will start World War 3, plus they will want to bring all of their kids.
I'm so glad I'm not the only nut who had a zillion people at their kid's parties. I was actually embarrassed to tell the hall we had to rent for Aisling's Christening how many people we were having for that event (it was around 85), and both her birthdays have come to about 70 people. It's not because we are trying to be extravagant or showy- it's just that we both have big families, plus some close friends we'd like to share the day with, and suddenly we're at a billion people.
We had talked about trying to cut waaaay down- like just our parents, grandparents, siblings- for Baby Dos's Christening, since we have a space issue in our house and November does not lend itself to outdoor stuff, but, like pp said, that would open up World War 3 with some other family members...so we are probably cutting out inviting friends at all (which makes me sadder than if we had to cut some family out...) and taking my parents up on their offer of hosting at their place.
In short, yes it is all ridiculous but quite honestly I don't know how to stop it without causing issues.
We had a guest list of 80 and 50 showed. We too have large families, the blessing and the curse.
My neighbor made those same cupcakes for her nephew's birthday party, they were pretty simple and a HUGE hit.
I am in the early stages of planning one for mid-November and I am DETERMINED to keep the guest list reasonable - bonus, I want to have it at our house. I am thinking the key to this is not letting my MIL anywhere near the guest list. I am more interested in inviting our friends and having fun rather than accomodating my DH's big extended family. So unlike our wedding, I am putting my foot down early and basically not letting her have anything to do with it.
I am thinking of doing an elephant theme with girly accents for the party. We did weekly then monthly pictures of DD with her stuffed elephant to show her growth, so I am hoping to incorporate all those pictures.
I had a combined 1st birthday and 10th birthday party for my daughter and son. We had 85 people in our house at the end of June. It was hot as balls out so everyone stayed inside which kind of sucked because I was hoping people would sit outside on the porch. Our family always has big parties so no judging from me on your big parties. My dad was one of 6 and my husband is one of 6 as well. Both sides breed like rabbits so there isn't really any way around huge parties. We also like parties and use every chance we can to have people over (Olympic Opening Ceremony party for an example, haha). I really wanted to do a theme but at the end of the day, with being suicidal at work, I barely had a party for them to begin with.
I was so scared while planning it to tell DH how many people were coming. It was like a freaking mini wedding reception.
our parties are always huge and out of control but i like it like that, parties are what our family likes to do. so we do it big especially first birthdays. I have a hard time fitting just immediate family over for dinner, there was no way we were having a party at our house, I rented a local hall and had about 100 invited, only 65 showed, the place was definitely too big for the amount of people we had but it was same price regardless so we just had lots of room instead.
Theme for Anna's first was How Sweet It Is- lollipops, candy, cupcakes, etc,colors were pink and turquoise. Had an ice cream sundae bar, cotton candy, lots of cupcakes, pink lemonade, pin the cherry on the cupcake that I made via pinterest, etc.. I had a ball planning it and will gladly AW pics for anyone interested. Theme for JD's was a cowboy theme, also a hall and same amount of people. Decorated with red and white checkered table clothes, horseshoe shaped pretzels, cow print balloons, had catered BBQ food and pony rides. David's was forever ago and no theme held at a local skate center, although he couldnt enjoy it, all the people invited had kid that would so it worked for us. Both of my theme parties were awesome and I am glad I did a big party for them.
Love the little monster theme, so many cute ideas on pinterest. Jesus, how the heck did we do anything before it????
Jonathan Dean 4.5.08
Anna Capri 5.4.11
This was one thing I did, too. It was a big hit but let's be honest. Who doesn't love a good ice-cream sundae bar?! And Pinterest... I have so many damn things pinned that I would have loved to do but just ran out of time. I guess there is always next year.
oh dear god, I am so glad I am not the one with insane guest counts! I thought maybe I was going too far!
I like the idea of an open house-- what do you say on the invitation? Anytime after X:00? How does that work?
I would just word it Open House then Date and the Start Time on the next lines. If people have half a brain, they will figure it out.
This is precisely what my problem is. With immediate family and close family friends, we are around 50, which is what most halls/restaruants require. You will always have a percentage that do not show. I am afraid that we would look silly in a hall, yet have too many for a restaurant. Even taking 30 people to a restaurant is insane in my opinion. I was thinking possibly doing this for the christening, a set menu and BYOB. If you don't like what we have, too bad!
Jonathan Dean 4.5.08
Anna Capri 5.4.11
Haha thanks Jess! Since we call him ouronster, I felt A monster mash theme was appropriate. I am working on the invites tonight, I will post them tomorrow.
I love your classic Mickey theme. You have to let us know how the cupcakes come out. When is Vinny's birthdate?
You are definetly crafty indeed. I love looking at your blog. Can't wait to see the invites and how everything turns out.
The invites!
We are having a party at our house and inviting all the fam.
The theme is 'Look Whooo's Turning One" with cute little owls. Ditto Kell on a lot of things. I love love love planning parties.
Amer that is too cute. Love the invites! His actual birthday is 10/4. The cupcakes came out pretty well! They should be easy enough for the day of. My biggest headache right now is the food since it's an outdoor party in a park.
Here are the invites:
I swore before having a kid I would never have a 1st birthday party when I had a kid. Now I am in the midst of planning an event which may rival our wedding. Kidding, sort of.
Our guest list is probably around 90 total (30ish couples: close friends + family + their kids). We're doing it at an italian restaurant near our house.
We are doing a music theme. I've hired his music teacher (I took him to infant music class starting at 5 months) to come with her ginormous bag of instruments for 45 minutes to entertain the kiddos (and the adults).
Here's where I got the invite and idea: http://www.etsy.com/listing/72989086/diy-music-party-package
Love it Amer! Too cute!
Jess- love yours also.
So how do you make such cute invitations, or do you cheat and use a website that does it for you?
Jonathan Dean 4.5.08
Anna Capri 5.4.11
I made an invitation for my niece's first birthday last night. I've always printed my own invitations but, Jess, I'd like to know more about how you go about having them printed by Shutterfly for so cheap!
P.S. can someone let me know if the image of the invite attached properly? I went about adding it a different way than I normally do and am curious if it worked.
Good idea, thanks erbur!
Jess, those invites are so cute and the cupcakes came out really good! Impressive!
Re: invites- I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like. I looked around on etsy, and couldn't find exactly what I wanted, so I created my own in photoshop and used elements of like 3 or 4 different invites.
PS.. sorry it was so huge. I'm still trying to figure out how to post pictures on TN. I was so much better on TK
For me, I add a picture to my post and then click on the pic. A black boarder line appears and you can click, hold, and drag the photo smaller by the corners. For the signatures, the code will say something like "width=" and "height=" followed by numbers. Mine actually just has the width. You can change those numbers to smaller numbers to shrink the photo.
I just saved it as a JPEG file and uploaded it as a photo to my shutterfly account. Then I ordered matte prints, as opposed to glossy. They are clearly on photo paper, but they turned out OK by me!