Who – We wanted to invite both Pre-K classes including all siblings and both parents. Beyond that we included close friends and family. All in all it ended up at about 25 kids 40 adults. If you’re reading this for your own planning purposes I think it is reasonable to expect that week of, and day of, you’ll have people cancel for a variety of reasons – but you also may have attendees who did not respond in any way. So I always plan for a few extra in terms of food and favors.
Where – The amount of people we wanted to invite was a big determinant in where we chose to have our party, which was our country club. We liked that the big open room provided insurance for weather purposes. If it was rainy or too cold, we could be entirely indoors, and if it was nice weather we could do some outdoors, since the spaces are connected. It ended up being nice weather and so we did the first half of the party with lunch inside and then transitioned outside to finish up with cake and other activities. I love having parties of all types in my home – it stresses me out way less actually. Probably the illusion of control! But in this case I knew I’d also be way too worried about how many people we could invite and whether or not the weather would cooperate and wanted to take that stress out of the equation.
What – Margaret chose a “magical” theme. She listed a bunch of magic related things she wanted like unicorns, dragons, princesses, and knights – so it turned into a “fairy tale” party. For entertainment purposes we had the following:
- Face-painting & Balloon Making thanks to Childlike Productions.
- Cinderella from Childlike Productions was the key player – we had no idea she would be an actual princess angel magician who entertained the kids the whole time. She brought books, games, crafts – she was an absolute treasure. The little girls were especially thrilled but the boys were also on board! If you’re in the area we would highly recommend this company.
- Unicorn Horn Station – I got this idea from our Pre-K teachers who did this for the Christmas party to make “Christmas Trees”. You get ice cream cones (in a truly conical shape, like a horn), icing, flashy sprinkles, and the kids slather on the icing and pick their sprinkles, and customize their horn that they can either eat or just look at.
- Dragon Egg Hunt – This was basically an Easter egg hunt. If you can, buy pre-stuffed eggs. My saint of a sister helped fill a bunch but it takes time! This can be done for other party themes like a dinosaur party, zoo party, or a barnyard party. We bought these baskets to use which were cute and worked but I realized that day if I’d just done bags the kids could’ve more easily taken their eggs home. I think maybe people thought they couldn’t take the baskets with them!
- Pinata – Margaret loves a pinata so we indulge her. The kids were so cute during this activity – they would chant and cheer each other on in the sweetest way – I loved it! We got a dragon pinata and filler at Walmart.
- Dress Up and Play Time – I like to think of birthday parties as a play date on steroids. At the end of the day whether you are at a zoo or in your living room – kids just want to play. So the dress up station was a huge part of the celebration. Kids were free to pick and choose whatever they wanted throughout the party and then take home their favorites.
Details:
- Paper Goods – I created a little crest for Margaret with watercolor pencils that we used to design an invite which we then put into Paperless Post to send out as an e-invitation. I love paper invites but over time have found this to be the best method for kids parties as far as getting RSVPs. Then Paper Please was able to turn our crest into thank you notes for us to send out. We also sent the crest to Staples to be printed up and then glued that print out onto foam core to create shields to decorate with. We also ordered these Meri Meri knight and unicorn napkins and they are even cuter in person than I imaged!
- Favors – We did little bags of cotton candy that we placed in plain bags and put stickers with the crest on them that we’d just printed out at home. Besides the cotton candy, kids were free to take whatever they wanted from the dress up home with them.
- Centerpieces – We went with these over-sized balloons that I ordered from Amazon and had filled up at Publix. They were $4 a piece to fill up but I think they were worth it. We also included princess, unicorn, and dragon items from around the house as a party of the centerpieces. They were cute and also kids could play with them. WARNING: the balloons are enormous. It took us and an angel of a friend many many trips from the store to the party to get the balloons. IF you decide to go this route, I’d suggest considering renting a helium tank and filling the balloons on-site.
- Decor and More – I like decor that is interactive. These pop up castle and carriage tents were perfect and are now in use for the girls at home. We’d planned on bringing this princess tent we already had but (gross warning) one of our cats puked in it and we couldn’t clean it so we found this smaller grey one that is great too. I also ordered inflatable unicorn noodles, and bigger inflatable unicorns. We thought about ordering inflatable dragons too but had to reign it in. There is a play house/swing set in the outside space of our club so we decorated that a bit too. I used these pennant flags that we already had from Catherine’s birthday, and ordered some faux flower ivy from Amazon. We also used this on the pop-up castle. My favorite little find was at Michael’s right before the party, but these little unicorn ornaments were on 80% off on Christmas clearance and we tucked them into the ivy for added whimsy. I made these little princess party hats with extra party hats I had in my “party drawer” and some ribbon. I cut open the pointed top a bit wider, stuck some ribbon through it and tied it in a knot.
- Dress-Up – This was my favorite part of the party – even parents were dressing up! We ordered these flower crowns, wands, unicorn horns, dragon masks, knight shields, knight capes, necklaces, rings, earrings, tutus, and we meant to order wings but forgot!
- Cake – Our cakes were also from Publix and boy were they good. I didn’t think the Princess Barbie cake would be enough for everyone so I got another one.
- Music – We love the ___ station for a good princess, Disney music compilation that everyone enjoys! We brought our own speaker and this is the one Curtis recommends.
- What We Wore – Margaret knew she wanted to wear a princess dress, so she chose Cinderella. I found Catherine’s sweet little Rapunzel dress by Remember Nguyen from J. Wills. My MIL had given me this Lilly Pulitzer maxi dress for Christmas and since blue was Margaret’s favorite color that day, I went with it! And for anyone curious, Curtis usually defaults to a performance fabric shirt and shorts of some kind. His favorites tend to be Birddog shorts and Southern Tide shirts.
I truly enjoy planning and hosting parties of all kind. That doesn’t mean that it is without stress, but it does serve as a motivator and certainly takes away some of the inherent stress involved in party planning! To read more on our thought process behind party planning after a few years of birthday celebrations under our belt, head to this post. And if you’re reading this and about to embark on a soiree of your own, good luck and enjoy!
