Since I get a little intense when it comes to first birthdays, I thought it might be interesting to create a “La Fête” series where I blog about the process of party planning. I opt to have pretty parties, but I want to debunk that it reflects a high budget! The first part of the series will cover choosing a theme.

 

What’s a theme?

People tend to get confused with the word theme. A theme doesn’t always have to be something concrete like animals or cars, but if you like a combination of colors or patterns, that too can be a theme; it’s simply a little more abstract. A theme is what you want it to be. You can find inspiration from the littlest thing and make it great.

When I started thinking about Sienna’s first birthday, I knew I wanted a specific color – emerald. Being the design geek that I am, when emerald was announced to be the Pantone color of the year for 2013, I knew it was perfect since it is May’s birthstone. Then I went into brainstorming overload — that’s the most important part.

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Brainstorm :

You need to define what’s important to you and work from there. For me, the color itself played an important part and I wanted something different so I tried to think out of the box. Grab a pen and paper, your cellphone, your laptop — basically your favorite list making medium and think about anything and everything. There are no good or bad ideas at this point – simply note everything that comes to mind. The reason you do this is when you go back and look at what you noted, it might spark some new ideas and a completely new direction.

I made my list and though it may seem like the most obvious choice (and it usually is), it didn’t come so easily: An emerald themed birthday. Yes a gem party. You’d wonder why it took me a few days to realize that! Emerald is the color of the year. It’s also a gem and Sienna’s birthstone.

Fete Board:

Another important step in creating your theme is a fete board. Basically it’s a place where you keep all sorts of inspiration to give you a sense of the theme you are going for. You can opt to print pictures and put them on a pegboard or in a folder. I personally use Pinterest, but there are many other options like  Mural.ly or Evernote.

Color scheme:

After you’ve figured out the theme, generally the colors are usually much easier to choose. If you decided to used specific colors for your theme, then this part is done already, but if like me you opted for something a little different, then the color selection is a key part.

With Sienna’s emerald gem party I knew one this there would be green. Emerald green is a pretty dark color so I wanted to focus on lighting it up a notch and thought that mint greens and light blue with a touch of gold might just be it. I could have gone for brighter colors (I love fuchsia and emerald green), but it was a gem party and I wanted it to reflect the maturity of the stone. (Well to a certain extent… it is a first birthday party.)

Choosing the theme has to be by far my favorite portion of planning a party. Sure I love decorating it and putting my ideas to practice, but if you follow these steps you will be able to envision your party even if its months away. I’m not a party planner by trade, but I think my design background plays a big role in wanting things to look great.

Now the next step is to figure out location, type and budget. We all know that you can have tiny to huge parties, but don’t feel overwhelmed with what you see on blogs, Pinterest or other social media outlets. I understand that it can be daunting, and you might feel like it raises the bar so high, there’s no way you could have something half as good. The truth of the matter is that you can still have something great, and in the eyes of your family and friends it will feel nothing short of amazing. And isn’t that what counts?

Location :

If you have the space, you can opt to have the party at your place to save on costs. If the weather permits, you can have an outdoor party. If not, something indoors is definitely doable as long as you have enough seating.

Mr. Sunglasses doesn’t enjoy when we have parties at our place and though I wanted to have Sienna’s first birthday at home, I promised him for the next couple of parties we’d opt for something a little different.

Location doesn’t have to be expensive, and you don’t necessarily have to rent out a hall for a party. There are many options like the park (for free usually), kid-friendly restaurants, special party rooms at the movie theater, the water park/theme park, the beach/the pool (not the best idea for young kids), in a green area like the woods, theme park. Usually when you choose your theme, you’ll notice that a specific type of location works best for your party, and if budget allows it, that’s what you should probably do.

Type of party :

Now it’s time to figure out exactly what type of party you would like. A big or an intimate party? Detail oriented or very simple? Lunch, picnic, BBQ or desserts only?  For example, Sienna’s birthday will be a brunch with desserts. I opted for an 11 o’clock party simply because I didn’t want it to interfere with naps. Because of the time, we will have some breakfast foods, sandwiches and sweets and decorations will be light and outdoorsy. That means balloons, garlands, streamers, pinata – nothing too over the top.

Budget :

The big B word – Budget. What really helps when planning a party is deciding how much you would like to spend so that you can do a proper breakdown. Breakdown usually includes the following :

  • Food & Drinks : (50%)
  • Decorations (20%)
  • Invitations : (15%)
  • Favors: (10%)
  • Extra : ( 5%)

Sure there can be additional sections to your budget breakdown, but generally you’ll fit pretty much everything in those 5 sections. I usually play around with the alotted percentage per area. For example food and decorations play an important role when I plan a party, so I opt to have digital invitations and use what I would have originally budgeted in that section and use it in others.If you are crafty you can certainly DIY lots of projects to have high impact but low cost. I personally find that crafting adds a unique twist to a party and you can make things that you can’t necessarily find in stores. I’ll definitely share some inexpensive decor suggestions and DIY in future posts.

Up next : invitation + guest list

Did you have a theme for your child’s birthday party? How did you come up with it?