For my daughter Riley’s first birthday party, I wanted to pick a theme that wasn’t very common, but that would be easy to find or make decorations for. I spent months thinking of every possible theme I could wrap my mind around, but then one of my friends would inevitably use that theme for one of their kids. Eventually, I decided that a traditional picnic birthday party would be perfect for our needs. I searched for red gingham on every website I could find, and got planning.
I tried to stick to the traditional parts of a picnic as my decorating scheme. I used plenty of red gingham, fake grass, red wagons, picnic baskets, and some adorable little ants. I honestly didn’t know how it was all going to come together on the day of the party, and I bought way more than I actually needed, but it all turned out great in the end.
I hired my friend Aly to make the desserts for the party (find her on Instagram at Dollys_BakeShop) and everything turned out SO beautiful. We ordered four different flavors of cupcakes (s’mores, lemon vanilla, strawberry shortcake, and brown sugar vanilla) and a four inch vanilla bean smash cake for Riley to destroy enjoy. I bought the little burlap cupcake flags from Hobby Lobby (link) and painted the color coded hearts on each one to signify what flavor they were. We decided to use our mini radio flyer wagon as the smash cake stand to set it apart from the cupcakes.
Lucky for me, my parents offered up their backyard for us to host the party in, and with the backyard came this amazing popcorn machine. This was a once in a lifetime find that my mom and I scored at a garden show for $50. They sold it as a non-working popcorn machine, and once we got home my dad ordered the parts that were needed and had it working within a week. Guests (especially little ones) enjoyed fresh popped popcorn until the main course was ready.
I had grand plans for what I wanted the favors to be. I was planning to make cookies in the shapes of fruit, and individually ice them to look like the fruit they tasted like. I had planned to do this because I had bought these berry baskets (pictured above) and wanted to use them in a creative way. Once I realized how much I really had to do the days leading up to the party, that was immediately out the window. I ended up picking up blueberry muffins from Costco (those amazing giant ones) and individually cling wrapping each one to put in a basket. This saved so much time, and I got a lot of feedback of how cute this idea was.
In terms of entertainment, we had a couple of options. We had bocce ball available to play or watch (sometimes watching is even more fun with our family) and we also had bubbles for the little ones. It was hilarious, because once we turned on the bubble machine it was like a beacon for every kid in the party. They came from left and right and all gathered around the bubble machine. Best $20 I’ve ever spent!
We ended the party with cake, and the birthday girl smashed the heck out of her own little one. Overall this was a very successful event (especially since it was the first ever kids birthday party that I had planned).
Vendor Credits:
- Photography- Chelcy Marie Photography
- Desserts- Dolly’s Bake Shop
- Table and Chair Rentals- Williams Party Rentals
Party on!
partydarlings.com 