From Concept to Execution: A Colorful Birthday

Photographer details linked.

This party is extra special to me since it was the first birthday party for my son, Nicholas! Of course, as an event planner, I knew I wanted to go big. I also didn’t want to do any of those typical first birthday themes like “Wild One” or “The Big One”. After a lot of thinking, I landed on a very colorful birthday party. It made sense since I had been photographing each milestone photo as a different color on the spectrum! I also love a colorful theme as I believe colors are so great for babies’ visual development. The most important thing to me when putting this together was for it to specifically feel like a color party and not a rainbow theme party. Read on to see how I went about it!

I started with a mood board. To avoid feeling like a rainbow, I decided to go with more muted (yet still bright) tones. I started by putting together a color palette. Once I did that, I found an image of draped balloon chains from the ceiling and I photoshopped my palette onto that image. Between the photo and the color palette all together, I felt it would be successful. The top image just confirmed my love of the pops of color. I already knew from day one I would go crazy with the balloons. The two images in the middle column were just a reminder to myself that I would want to gather various honeycomb decor and also add tassels to the balloon garland I’d eventually make. Finally on the right, I started gathering cake inspiration. I always loved the paint palette look and knew it would be perfect for the color theme. From there, I started researching items I could buy. I found various colored cake toppers (none of which would make it into the final product), an adorable Meri Meri animal garland, bright Meri Meri streamers, and finally, his adorable birthday outfit! I felt the green pants made a loud color statement while the shirt added more color, but not in an overwhelming way.

Next as the concept. I went back and forth as to whether I should have the main event (the cake smash) take place in the living room or the dining room. If I went with the dining room, I could clear it out and have an open wall as sort of a blank canvas to do with whatever I wanted. I ultimately chose to go with the fireplace though. I knew I could do something fun with the Samsung Frame TV art. I also always think balloons coming out of a fireplace is so cute and fun.

My biggest concern with the fireplace was how heavy the black was on the surround. I didn’t want it to overwhelm the color or distract from it. I knew balloons coming out of the fireplace would help, but I still couldn’t shake this dilemma. Eventually I realized I could temporarily cover it up with renter-friendly stick-on subway tile! I bought some mint green subway tile from Amazon and applied it to the fireplace. It made an INSTANT difference! You can see how the fireplace started out before vs during the party. Additionally, you can see how the frame TV art really added to the overall look!

So that was it for the main decor! The showstopper was the sheer amount of colorful balloons everywhere. The party animal garland was just a fun little touch to add some playfulness to the design (without feeling too much like it was veering as a circus animal or party animal theme). As a last minute touch, I added some of his stuffed animals to the top of the mantle as a fun little vignette! Next, it was time to focus on the dining room for the food and dessert.

For the cake, I knew I wanted a 2 tier cake where the top layer could come off and become the “smash cake” for Nicholas. As mentioned earlier, I had always planned on it being a sort of painter’s knife kind of look. To mix that up, I wanted a different pattern on the bottom and I thought simple stripes would look so cute! Nicole from Nicole Bakes Cakes did such a fantastic job. She even was able to get me these adorable animal toppers and I just could not resist! They were too cute to pass up. For the cupcakes, I made a simple yellow cake with buttercream frosting and topped with colorful sprinkles. I had a lot of fun making silly Nicholas faces as cupcake toppers and the guests loved them! For the rest of the dining room decor I wanted to splash as much color as I could onto the walls, so I did that with a fun twist crepe banner, colorful fans, and honeycombs!

For the serving table, I knew I wanted to continue the color into all the tableware. For the cups and napkins, I went with a colorful stripe arrangement, but I wanted to avoid overly colorful plates. I didn’t want everything to clash. Instead, I thought it would be fun to have a mix of plates in various colors! Guests had fun picking out which plate they would use.

Overall, it was a colorful success! If you need help designing your next event, reach out! I’d be happy to help bring your vision to life. I’m available for local designs and now virtual as well!