Our baby girl turned ONE on 9.6.09 (can you believe it!) and we had a mini celebration with just the rents'. However, we had a bigger celebration with more family and friends on 9.12.09. It was such a sweet celebration for a very sweet little girl.
I drew inspiration from various wedding planning blogs such as Style Me Pretty and party blogs like Hostess with the Mostess. Until I finally settled on a Parisian/Garden theme. I have been dreaming up her party for months. It's a big deal for me because this celebration was not only for her, but for us as well, after all, as parents we survived this first year =).
I wanted to make sure it was sophisticated and girly, but also had some kiddish elements of being a one year old's party. We held it in our back yard to keep cost down. I rented chairs and tables, umbrellas, and linens from a party rental place, that took up almost half the budget, but it was necessary. I knew that I wanted to focus on decorations and setting up, in which case, my execution of those projects would have been a complete failure if it weren't for some amazing friends who came through and helped out so much.
In order to stay focused on my projects, I decided to leave the food up to the professionals, so as much as I love to cook and bake, I had it all catered. To stay with the French theme, I had ordered Macarons in seven different flavors, and Madelienes for the dessert bar from my favorite local bakery Patisserie Chantilly. And the Piece de Resistance, were the Cream Puffs. I opted for delicate cream puffs instead of a traditional cake or cupcakes because of it's French connection. I sat it on a makeshift tiered cake stand and placed it on some moss to keep with the garden theme.
The cheese platter was one of my proudest moments, I hand picked the best french cheeses, displayed them on a slate platter. I labeled each cheese with broken terracotta pieces that I had rubber stamped the names on it. I picked up this idea from Danny Seo's Simply Green Parties book.
Ahh the ever-so-trendy Martha Stewart Pom Pom balls made there way to the party as well. They are just too cute and simple enough to make that I could not resist. I have to fully disclose that yes, they were easy to make, but to make 17, took for freaking ever, I enlisted a friend to help me finish about an hour before the party started and she was still not finished when the first, second and third and fourth guests had arrived, god bless her heart though, because she did not give up until she had every last one of them suckers hanging.
For the table-scape, I purchased some jars and vases from Marshall's and planted ferns and orchids, I made sure I had gravel for drainage and covered the unattractive soil with Spanish and sheet moss. I wanted to stay away from cut flowers because they are pricier and fade pretty quick. Oh and I added artificial butterflies to give some color to the centerpieces
The hubs put together a playlist of modern French lounge music and we had it streaming during the party. He also did a nice little slide show that looped on the Plasma inside the house, so guest can catch a glimpse of our cutie pie.
A great time was had by all, including the beautiful birthday girl!
All the amazing photos above were taken by my friend, professional photographer Brian Khang.
0 comments:
Post a Comment