My Baby’s 1st Birthday Party

One of the reason I abandoned this blog was the fact that I was so busy planning on my baby’s 1st birthday party.  After a long research and considering this is just a 1st birthday party, I decided to invite my bible study friends, a few close friends and family.  I skipped renting a fancy place or hire an entertainer since my boy was not going to enjoy it anyway.  I had a total of 30 adults and 20 kids for the party.  With a budget of $300, I had to be really smart in making sure everything falls under the budget.

The Venue

I decided to rent Coffman Pavilion in Dublin.  My friend, who is a resident, agreed to rent the space under her name to get a cheaper rate.  The pavilion is not completely enclosed; it opens on the back side.  Rent costs $31.

The Decor

The theme of the party is “Monkey”.  I bought this really cute printable material from Etsy for cupcake wrapper, some food labels, popcorn wrapper, cupcake topper, and banana-shaped favor box.  Let me tell you, I probably spent months cutting and folding those banana-shaped favor boxes.  But those banana favor box is so darn cute!  I also had some leftover of card stock from my oldest son’s birthday party that I can use. Total cost:  $13 for printable design and $9 for Styrofoam blocks (for popcorn stand and marshmallow pop stand).  Total spending $22.

The Food

Believe it or not, at some point I decided to cook the entire meal until my husband laughed at me and said I was having a hard time cooking just for the family, let alone cooking for 50 people.  So I found out Mark Pi’s offers the best catering deal ever.  If you have at least 30 guests, you could spend less than $5/person.  The Mark Pi’s near campus has the best hot pepper chicken, and most of my guests went to OSU at one point.  So I knew this would be a big hit.  I decided to order catering from Mark Pi’s for the adult.  For $140 I got 2 pans of Hot Pepper Chicken, 1 pan Chicken Lo Mein, 1pan Pepper Steak, Steamed Rice and Fried Rice.  The owner threw free 36 pieces of Vegetable Egg Rolls.  For the kids I made Ham Mac ‘n Cheese, Mini Burger (using frozen sausage and biscuit) and Mini Sausages.  Total cost is around $150.

Cake and Dessert

My friend whom I typically ordered cakes from, was out of the country weeks before the party.  I insisted in having custom fondant cake.  After doing some research, I took a chance and went with Kroger Bakery in Powell, OH.  That Kroger is the only one that has pastry chef who can make custom fondant cake.  I didn’t know what I wanted, so I brought all the print out for decoration and gave it to the chef.  The chef didn’t sit down with you and drew the design like you normally get in a bakery.  I left not knowing what the design was going to look like.  It’s almost like you got what you paid for.  It was a bit of nerve wracking, but hey…it’s Kroger.  How bad could it be?  I ended up spending $50 for the cake and $5 for the smashing cake.  The smashing cake was somewhat a tiny version of the big cake without all the fondant decoration, but it was in butter cream frosting.

I wanted to have a dessert table for this party, which was the whole reason of buying these cute decoration.  Since I don’t bake, I had to buy all these dessert.  Luckily I found a Groupon deal from Be Blissful Dessert Company.  For $49 I got:

• 2 dozens of mini cupcakes
• 1 dozen marshmallow pop
• 1 dozen cake pop
• 2 dozen chocolate covered pretzel rod

Did the party turn out as I expected?  Absolutely!  Unfortunately the weather was super hot and I should take this into consideration when planning for the next party.  I guess that means I will certainly do this again!

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