How To // Throw a Fun Floral Themed Birthday Party!
Shop the party
I had the best time planning my baby girl’s 1st birthday party. My friends used to always say they would love for me to have a daughter because they knew I’d have a ton of fun with her; already, I can say they weren’t wrong!
A first birthday party can be tricky, because the guest of honor won’t have their own memories of the party, and most of the other guests will be loved ones as opposed to other children. So I wanted the party to be sweet and memorable, but not super “kiddie”; my husband and I also wanted to tie the theme back to Brooklyn, NY, the city Baby Brooklyn is named after. What we came up with, was a floral theme, a tie to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and we called it “Brooklyn’s ONEderful Botanical Garden”.
One of the best things about a floral theme is that it is open to interpretation and can work for a ton of different styles of party, from a 1st birthday party to a bridal or baby shower to just a fun girls’ day! When you’re planning, I recommend starting with the invitations, and tying everything back to those.
INVITATIONS
The invitation is the first impression guests get of your event, so you want it to be great! I found Orange Blossom Press on Etsy when I was searching for invitations for the young man’s graduation party last year, and I have used this shop for every single printed item I’ve done since then, from invites to thank you cards to our holiday card. Tara, the designer, is amazing! For this event, I found one of her party invite templates that I liked and tweaked it with a few custom details that matched the vibe I was going for.
Sometimes it’s hard to describe your vision if you aren’t a graphic designer, so an easy way to overcome that is to find something that’s similar to what you think you might like and then tweak it with custom details.
print vendors:
Invites: Orange Blossom Press | Return address labels: Roxy Benton Designs
DÉCOR
Depending on what you’re trying to achieve, it’s probably a good idea to start planning / ordering your décor about a month out from your event. I used Etsy for quite a few things and it takes time for people to make custom items. However, I did find that a couple of shop owners were perfectly willing to rush items that I ordered as we were getting down to the wire, as long as I reached out to them first and let them know what my timeline was.
For Brooklyn’s party, I wanted to express the theme through color as much as through the floral vibe so that it didn’t end up just being an explosion of flowers everywhere, so I tied it all together with a light pink and gold color scheme as well. In addition to floral touches like her high chair banner, the cake plates, table centerpieces, and welcome banner, there were pink and gold accents: the table linens and chairs, balloons, happy birthday banner, tableware, bar ware and dessert table.
Décor Vendors:
Tables, linens + chairs: Party Plus Rentals
Welcome banner + helium balloons: Party City
“Hello” balloon + Happy Bday banner: The Parties That Pop
“ONE” high chair banner: Paper Trail by Laura B
FOOD
I kept the menu simple with yummy croissant sandwiches and wraps using catering from my local supermarket, and with treats from a few local bakeries. Honestly, not worrying about cooking made the morning pre-party prep go a little more smoothly, so I would highly recommend catering whenever you can! That’s just one less stressor in the way of you enjoying your event. I had a lot of fun with the desserts though! Brooklyn’s smash cake was a lovely confection of strawberry cake with vanilla crème on the inside and strawberry rosette icing; the guest cake was botanical garden themed with beautiful butter crème icing flowers and greenery; there were color coordinated macarons, tiny cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies. Putting out a beautiful array on your dessert table is an easy way to fill out and warm up your décor, and it’s edible so win/win!
Food Vendors:
Smash cake + macarons: Flavor Cupcakery
Guest cake: Local grocery store
Sandwich + fruit platters: Local grocery store
Cake topper: Smash Caked
SPECIAL TOUCHES
One of my favorite ways that we rounded out the floral theme was with style! The birthday girl and I had matching pink flower crowns and we got additional ones with multicolored flower options for the guests. Brooklyn’s smash cake onesie also matched the front of the party invitation almost exactly. Another cute element you can add is to have fun with social media; we had a custom geotag and a custom filter for Snapchat (you may have seen both on my Instagram stories if you follow me on IG)! Having your guests use Snapchat filters and even custom hashtags is an easy way to make sure you don’t miss a thing that gets posted from your event, because you can find everything in one place.
Shop the style:
A floral theme was an easy and feminine way to celebrate Brooklyn’s first birthday and it's a cute way to celebrate any girls' occasion overall! Now…to start thinking about birthday party number two…