A big part of organizing a truly memorable party is listening to what your heart says, remembering who it is for and what it's really about. As long as it comes from the heart, how much you spend always comes last.
I started visualizing Mason's first birthday even before he was born. Just before I gave birth, my husband and I already had this conversation about how we wanted to spend our son's first birthday. And we were very particular about it being personal and centered on what will make our little boy's eyes light up with joy. And that it should also be something we'll look back to in the future and will make us all happy and nostalgic. It was a big deal to us early on. This is why I made sure I put a hundred percent of my effort in putting together Mason's party myself—it has to be special and it has to be ME to do it.
Disclaimer: I am not writing this post to slam packaged birthday parties - like the ones you can avail of at major food chains. I've attended a lot of these and they're fun all the same and I believe they help busy moms like me a great deal. I could've done it, and quite frankly I might even get one for Mason in the future. However for his first, I was just very particular about it being as PERSONAL as possible. He may not remember any of it, but it's important to me and my husband that his first ever birthday party is one, if not the most special.
For this party, we had a full 8-week prep time only and total expenses worth ₱62,000 tops. Like in our wedding, we were determined to not ask our families for financial help. So in as much as we wanted everything to be themed and personalized, we also had to make sure the end total is something within our spending capacity. But as always, we got a few donations from family and friends that made everything a lot easier for us and we're very, very grateful ♡ I'll be listing down all my vendors at the end of this post. What follows are - I guess - the most important learning I got from this experience that could give other ftm's like me a perspective and a baseline of how far a 62k birthday party budget could go in 2018.
Small, Simple = Less Stress
When it comes to organizing parties, I've always believed the simpler and smaller the easier it is to organize. For this experience, it proved to be 100% true. The first thing my husband and I identified was the estimated number of guests we'd invite. We're really not fans of big, extravagant parties (aside from the fact that I didn't have the energy to plan for something bigger) so early on, we set the number of guests to just around 50 people composed mainly of very immediate family and very close friends. We were determined not to skimp on food quality, so we're okay to just limit guests to closest family and friends as long as everybody will enjoy good food. In terms of cutting down, this is where it got really difficult because you can cut down on budget either by inviting just a few people and enjoy quality buffet food or inviting more but sacrificing overall quality. I put up a shared Google sheet of all the things related to coordination, which I'll be linking at the end of this article.
Find your focus and reduce background noise.
One of the my biggest learning when Jayson and I got married was that things can get chaotic when you listen to so many people. In big family events like weddings and birthday parties, I've learned that it is essential to find your own voice as a family unit. Of course we should always be appreciative of our family's suggestions, but ultimately that's just that - they're suggestions. The final outcome of the event has to be according to you and what works for your family. In the end, what really matters is you can all look back to this event without regrets but smiles on your faces because you followed your heart and not anybody else's opinion. In this case if your family needs to focus on sticking to a particular budget, then by all means focus on that regardless of how other people entice you to make it grander or bigger. People will always have opinions on how you should do your party because they have opinions on what's fun for them. But ultimately you're not doing this party for them but for your kid so that alone should tell you whose voice you should listen to: yours as your kid's mom.
It's really all about the wits and the smarts.
Apart from having limited budget, we also kinda crammed and had at most 8 full weeks of prep time so I had to really work smartly. We were initially planning for a Super Mario World theme, but I figured this will require more detailed stying. Since we couldn't spend much on styling, I went for the venue and theme that will require very little additional decor. The Happy Garden Cafe in Makati Avenue already has this lovely vibe to it with all the greenery and dreamy mood lighting. So we figured going for a Peter Pan/Neverland theme would be the best idea since we won't have to dress up the venue too much. It also helps to book a venue that also does catering. This is very important for us as we didn't want to coordinate with so many people as we're putting the party together by ourselves. For this party, our venue covered for the basic venue dress-up, catering, lighting, music equipment, and projector (with minimal fee). Happy Garden Cafe's food is superb (it's a Bistro Group resto) and please note that they also serve separate kiddie meals. Our theme also proved to be really fun to play out! We put up a Peter Pan playlist of all the lovely instrumentals from the movie, and asked everybody to dress up as Neverland characters. Mason also made an entrance flying! I also didn't have to spend much on my costume. I just bought this nice blue dress, tied my hair in a pony tail with a cute, little bow, and wore black flats - easy Wendy look! My husband also just bought a few pieces of accessories and played around with what he has in his closet to achieve the pirate look. We had to buy the birthday boy's costume from Toy Kingdom at ₱750.
Be realistic and remember who this is really for.
Lastly, we had to be realistic to keep everything within our budget. This is our firstborn we're talking about, and as first-time parents, we also had really big ideas in mind because we both wanted our baby's first birthday to be something that goes down in our family history. But we realized that it doesn't have to be complicated for it to be special. We made it big the only way we know how: we made it big in puso (heart). This is how we look at our family events now - full of puso. They may not be the grandest, but every detail came from the heart. We also kept repeating to ourselves that this is for Mason and not for anybody else (not even for us) that's why ultimately, his happiness is the only thing that mattered. And at this age, Mason's joy is not that complicated. He just wants to be with his family, hear everybody sing him the happy birthday song, and blow out a candle on a cute cake. It was a bonus for us that his eyes beamed with so much delight when we entered the venue. Plus of course he was ecstatic to see all his presents.
After the event, my husband and I felt proud at what our teamwork accomplished. It felt good to be able to put an event together like this by ourselves and most importantly that we were able to work within our spending capacity! We were also very proud at how personal this party ended up. My sister hosted it, a super close friend baked our to-die-for cupcakes, and my sister-in-law took the pictures! Apart from being practical, it felt good to have close friends and family as part of the party team as it made the coordination even more flawless and comfortable. As promised, below's the link to our coordination spreadsheet and a list of all our vendors and suppliers for this event. Share with me your preps and plans for your baby's birthday party in the comments!
Mason's 1st Birthday Party Google Sheet
Everything's here, our To-Do list, contact persons, budget breakdown, and programme. Feel free to duplicate this sheet and customize according to your own party needs.
Venue - The Happy Garden Cafe, Jupiter St., Makati Ave., Makati City
Contact person: Shirlie Navarro
Contact number: 09053759120
Email: happygardencafejupiter@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HappyGardenCafe/
Event Stylist - Little Red Riding Hood
Contact person: Cheryl Feliciano
Contact number: 09177019792
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/littleredridinghood.design/
Cake - The Birdhouse Bakers
Contact person: Kat Chiong
Contact number: 09258151257
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BirdhouseBakers/
Cupcakes - Bakehero
Contact person: Rina Lacandazo
Contact number: 09178118646
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bakelikeahero/
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