A look back at Party Time!
When my oldest was born, our world was turned upside down. There was nothing that could have prepared me for the complete loss of sleep on top of the long and painful recovery from a c-section. And the worry…. Oh the worry. When it came time to celebrate David’s first birthday, we decided to go all out. We just made it through an entire year and ALL survived! It took awhile for us to settle on a theme, but after a lot of research, we decided on golf. Joe loves everything golf, David liked chewing on golf clubs, and I loved all the related party details… perfect match!
Inspiration
When planning a party, I like to find one or two pictures as my inspiration and build out from there. Our inspiration photo came from the blog “Hostess with the Mostess” link here… such an amazing site! I loved everything about their cake table, so the above photo was my best attempt at replicating it with our own spin. It took a million years to research all the pieces, and we obviously had to tailor it to us, but it was totally worth it. It really set the stage for the party and it was the perfect display for the most amazing and delicious cake.
The Cake
Speaking of cake, it was the first order of business and was booked about 9 months in advance. A good friend of ours has her own custom cake business, and they are some of the most gorgeous and creative cakes we have ever seen. After the first post she made of one of her cakes, I knew we needed to have one.
Needless to say, we were thrilled. The cake matched the decor perfectly, and she’s not just about looks… Best cake I’ve ever eaten! (And I don’t even like cake)
Invitations and Banners
Another good friend of mine has a custom invitation and design company which magically fulfilled another big piece of the puzzle… what are the chances?? Based on the inspiration pic, we had a very specific idea in mind for all the banners, food cards, and the invitation. When dealing with color, it’s crazy how many shades there can be. Obviously we incorporated some other shades of blue, but the main read is navy. (There are also a million shades of navy, but I’ll try not to go into that. Joe and I have turned into color snobs. I never noticed the variance in color before working in retail. When you’re producing tens of thousands of the same colored shirt that need to sit together in stores, you feel as if the world is ending if the color doesn’t look perfect… This pickiness is a burden we will now carry the rest of our lives.)
Our friend, Lauren, nailed it! And made it super easy even though we were a thousand miles away. We did it mostly over email, and I took the file to a local place to print on nice paper. I only wish she lived closer and could’ve joined the party!
The 19th Hole – aka The Bar
Now I need to give a major shoutout to my husband, Joe. He works pretty long hours and doesn’t necessarily have tons of time for building things, but somehow, he managed to build us a bar! He had access to crates at work, so he brought those home, ran to the hardware store for the rest, and just went to town…
He claims that it wasn’t very hard to do, and we didn’t know we’d end up liking it as well as we did, so we made the mistake of not taking good care of it after the party. It was a sad day when we had to throw it away because it had taken a beating in the outdoor weather. If we ever do this again, we’ll be sure to seal it correctly and keep it in a garage during the winter months.
Was awesome while it lasted though!
It was a hot day in August, so the lemonade and iced tea went fast. Not as fast as the Arnold Palmer, though… that drink was amazing! There wasn’t much time where that drink wasn’t in my hand. Aren’t the little milk bottle glasses cute?? We rented them from a party supply store in Powell, Ohio (http://www.smidgeandpinch.com), and to this day, I still wish I had just bought them. I end up wishing I had them every time we host a party.
The Caddy Outfit
I never realized just how many friends helped us with this party until writing this! Another one of my favorite parts of this birthday celebration was the adorable little outfit David got to wear. Joe has seen some of the pros dressing their little kids as caddies at the Masters and wanted to replicate that with David. We found the white onesie at Baby Gap, and a good friend from work did the graphic design and screen printing for us. It turned out amazing. I will keep it forever!
Other details…
Centerpieces
We had way too much fun finding everything out there we could that was golf-related. For the centerpieces on the tables outside, we filled glass bowls and driving range baskets with a bunch of golf balls. We ended up getting a handful of them customized and sprinkled them on top of each pile.
Party Favors
We found a cute party favor box that looked like a golf cart and stacked those high on the table outside, along with decorated bottles of water, frames for the guests to sign, and photo books of David’s first year. Yes, I said books… plural… iPhoto only lets you do 100 pages per book, and I had a VERY hard time narrowing down photos. (very normal for your first child) Don’t worry, I now limit myself to one book per year, per child.
Food
We tried to stick with food that we could fit within the golf theme, and there was a decent amount! For example, “Club Sandwiches” and “Bogie Hoagies” for the sub sandwiches, “Birdie Bites” (chicken nuggets), “Chip shot” (chips), “Fruit PAR-fait”, “Sand trap” (basically dirt dessert with crushed blonde cookies on top to look like sand)…
Activities
As anyone with a toddler knows, we had to make sure there was plenty for the kids to do…. We created a mini golf course in the back yard that included a water hazard (aka baby pool). I should’ve also included a sand trap/box, but I chose to leave that out for selfish reasons. Sand is one thing that I HATE cleaning up, and thinking about kids tracking it into the house made my stomach flip.
In the garage, we set up a visor-making station and had golf balls lined up on tees for the kids to spray down with water. I’d have to say that the baby pool was probably the biggest hit and definitely a requirement for an August birthday.
The Aftermath…
I wish I had taken more pictures of the after-party disaster that was our home. It was such an awesome day, so the mess was totally worth it. We even threw in a group ice-bucket challenge at the end. It took almost a week before we returned to normal:)
Gosh that sure was a great day 🙂