How To Throw A First Birthday Party, Without Blowing The Budget!
Hello, I'm Nicola Law - the founder of highchair and weaning brand, Cove Baby. We create beautiful, aesthetically pleasing highchair accessories, so your child sits correctly and more comfortably when weaning. We also provide matching weaning accessories including bibs, plates and beakers.
Our daughter, Tilly, was born at the end of 2019, so when her first birthday came around in 2020 we were sadly in the middle of one of the Covid lockdowns. As we weren’t able to organise a proper party to celebrate, we had a small afternoon tea with family in our childcare bubble. I was initially a little disappointed we couldn’t celebrate with all of our friends and family, but it actually all turned out perfectly. We had a cute table set up with sandwiches, cakes, balloons and decorations.
Although we weren’t able to plan the party we would originally have liked, below are my top tips for planning a first birthday party having now also been to some other fantastic children's parties…
DECIDE ON A THEME 🥳
One of my top tips would be to have a theme, it’s much easier to organise decorations and plan food when you have a theme and it narrows down all of the hundreds of options. We chose Peter Rabbit, it's a classic for pictures, something which doesn’t age and rabbits are a favourite of so many children. It’s also not gendered specific, so you can recycle the decorations for other children.
GET SNAP HAPPY 📸
We found the best spot for taking photos of our 1-year-old was in her highchair, as she still wasn’t able to stand on her own. In the highchair, she was sitting up straight and we managed to get a little smile out of her! The photos also looked gorgeous with balloons behind her. There are also lots of lovely Etsy brands that create garlands for the front of the highchair, too.
BRING ON THE BALLOONS 🎈
These can cost a small fortune, so instead we bought some from Amazon and created our very own balloon arch. Some people also kindly put their balloon displays on Facebook Marketplace, once they’ve used them, so it’s definitely worth having a quick look on there first.
DON’T GO MAD WITH THE PRESENTS 🎁
We found just one or two presents was plenty for our little one, much to our horror, after planning and searching for perfect presents, she was far happier with the boxes and paper the presents came in. You’ll find that they get given so many presents by friends and families (grandparents love to go a bit mad) so I’d suggest buying a few nice second-hand toys instead.
REMEMBER THE ADULTS! 🥂
Because children’s parties should be fun for the adults too. A table with some drinks and good nibbles is essential. A favourite of one children’s party we attended recently was a fabulous cheeseboard.
We hope these tips set you up for birthday party success! And make sure to use the code madecove15 on the Cove Baby website for 15% off the entire website.
Blog post written by Nicola Law of Cove Baby.
