How to Plan a Large Birthday Party-Part 5: Give Your Thanks

One of the most important things to do at the conclusion of a party you have hosted is to thank your guests for coming. You should send out thank you notes/cards no later than a week after your party. Since my party was a birthday party I wanted to add a little twist and give each of my guests birthday cake.....Gold Canyon Birthday Cake Candle that is ;-)

Each guest had this candle and a thank you card waiting outside of their hotel door for them. You can ask the hotel to deliver this type of stuff to your guest's rooms and of course you can do it yourself like I did.

So there you have it! To recap you have learned that in order to successfully map out a birthday party for a large group you need to create an itinerary followed by sending out invitations. As you wait for RSVPs, you can start ordering and creating decorations, paying attention to how you can apply minor details to make the party standout. Moreover, we have learned how to handle potential guests who have not RSVP'd and we have captured the importance of how to thank our guests at the conclusion of our party.

I hope this week long blog entry about How to Plan a Large Birthday Party was helpful and you can go out and plan your next large birthday party successfully. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to reach out to me.

XOXO,

How to Plan a Large Birthday Party-Part 4: Dealing with RSVPs

As you are creating your decorations and ordering food and drinks for your large birthday party, you are at a stand still because you do not know how many minor details to make for individual guests and you have no idea how much food & drinks to order. You realize that the RSVP date has long passed and you have not heard from a couple of your guests. You need to hear from them as soon as possible, but you do not want to send them yet another text about the large birthday party around the corner.

Evite is your answer.

Evite is such a great tool to use because it is a friendly way of letting your potential guests know that they have an event to RSVP to. The above image shows an Evite that I sent to some guests who had not RSVPd. Unfortunately, some people do not understand the importance of RSVPing, but this way is the best way to let them know and get an answer quick since a lot of people actively check their emails. All you need are your potential guests' email addresses and then Evite will do all the work! The cool thing about using Evite is that when your potential guests do RSVP, the update gets sent immediately to your email.

How to Plan a Large Birthday Party-Part 3: Minor Details

Minor Details tie the whole party together. They are the little, yet BIG things that you add to a party that make it stand out. Below I will show you just some of the minor details I used during my 23rd Mardi Gras meets Masquerade Birthday Party.

Minor Details #1: Welcome Party Bin

For all of my guests' rooms I left them a welcome party bin that included their masks for the party, personalized door hangers with a bag full of candy, more treats, and an itinerary for the weekend.

To make the above door hanger I simply purchased a wooden door hanger from Michaels

I then painted it royal purple with paint also purchased from Michaels, and then adorned it with a cute mini frame. Next, I took the first letter of each guest's name, cut out the corresponding letter from a magazine, and fixed it in the middle of the frame that I glued onto the door hanger. On the back of the door hanger I placed this bag of treats equipped with EBOOST to give them lots of energy for the weekend...

As for the itinerary for the week, I used Vistaprint to design a welcome/itinerary card.

Click here for a continuation on the Minor Details I used for my party!

How to Plan a Large Birthday Party-Part 3: Minor Details CONTINUED

Like I said, Minor Details truly do add to a party! Check out my continuation of some of the decorative ideas I created for my 23rd Mardi Gras meets Masquerade Birthday party below.

Minor Details #2: Mask Cork Board Creation

I really wanted to capture the mask look with my party since masks are a huge part of Mardi Gras and Masquerades. To make this Mask Cork Board Creation you will need the following:

(1) Mask (2) Corkboard (3) Hot glue gun w/ glue sticks (4) Construction paper that matches the color scheme you are using for your party. All of these items can be purchased at Michaels.

To create, evenly align 4 pieces of construction paper onto the cork board-glue accordingly. Find the center of your cork board and position the mask in the middle-glue accordingly. You're done!

Minor Details #3: Mardi Gras Sand Vase

To make this table piece you will need the following:

(1) Mini vases (2) Bag of purple sand (3) Pipe cleaners (assorted colors that match your theme) All of these items can be purchased at Michaels.

To create, take your bag of sand, pour it in the vase leaving about a quarter of an inch to the top free, and then dig the pipe cleaners into the sand. To make it look unique, bend the pipe cleaners in different directions!

Minor Details #4: Mask & Feather Pot

The final picture of this creation is coming soon as I failed to properly upload it. But, the picture to the right gives you a little bit of an idea as to how the final look turns out. To make this Mask & Feather Pot creation you will need the following:

(1) A small clay pot (2) Lots of feathers that match your theme colors (3) hot glue gun with glue sticks (4) wooden tongue sticks (5) small Styrofoam ball (6) Construction paper that matches the theme colors of your party (7) Traceable mask (8) glitter
All of these items can be purchased at Michaels.

To create, take your bag of feathers and separate the single color you want to use on the pot. In this case, I chose the purple feathers and left the remaining two colors for my other pots. Next, I took my hot glue gun and glued the feathers on the outer surface of the small clay pot as well as the inner surface. From there, I took my small Styrofoam ball, cut it in half, and placed it in the inside of the pot.

Separately, I took a traceable cardboard mask found at Michaels and traced it over my desired colored construction paper. Be sure to use a light pencil when doing this. Cutting out only the outer part of the tracing, I proceeded to glue it on top of the traceable cardboard mask. I did this to make the mask more durable. Since there were still light pencil marks from my tracing, I took glue and outlined the eyes and mouth of the mask as well as the inner part of the eyes and mouth with the glue. I then poured glitter on it and waited a couple of minutes for it to dry. Once dry, I glued the wooden tongue stick to the back of the mask and then pressed the wooden tongue stick portion into the Stryrofoam that had been placed into the pot. Mask & Feather pot creation COMPLETE!

Minor Details #5: Mardi Gras Box and Mardi Gras "beads"

I really like to fill up a room with as many minor details as I can! There are two ways in which I did this, one with a box, the second with construction paper. With the above creations you can easily enhance a room.

To make the first Mardi Gras box creation you will need the following:

(1) small cardboard box (2) construction paper that matches the colors of your theme (3) hot glue gun and glue stick (4) ruler

To create, take your ruler and measure the sides of the small cardboard box. Take your construction paper and using the measurements you just obtained, trace out the measurements, varying between different construction paper colors. Cut what you traced and glue it directly onto the cardboard box. COMPLETE!

To create the Mardi Gras "beads" take a cutout punch like the one below

as well as your designated construction paper and slide the construction paper into the cutout punch, punching various colors along the way. Use the circles you punched out as Mardi Gras "beads" and disperse them throughout the party. You can even use them as streamers by punching a tiny hole in them, stringing chicken wire through them, and hanging them on ceilings and walls.

There you have it! These were just some of the ways in which I included Minor Details in my party :-)

How to Plan a Large Birthday Party-Part 2: Decorations

So you've chosen the theme for your party, created an itinerary for the birthday party, sent out invitations and are now waiting for RSVPs. What to do, what to do? It's time to start getting decorations!

I wanted to activate sight the second my guests walked into the room where I was hosting the first part of my birthday celebration and I knew there was only one decoration company that could bring my vision to life; Oriental Trading! This company has party supplies, crafts, and party decorations for absolutely ANY occasion. Since I wanted to bring my Mardi Gras meets Masquerade theme to life, I ordered a metallic gold door curtain to hang at my door so it screamed "party time" as soon as my guests stepped up

and I ordered the Mardi Gras Design-A-Room Set. It was simple to use, all I did was unravel the set, obtain adhesive tape, and stuck it to the walls of my party room. This look really enhanced the theme!

The Mardi Gras Design-A-Room Set also came with 'people' that you could also stick to the walls which I thought was so cool and a must have.

What is a Mardi Gras meets Masquerade party without masks? On one of the nights of the party I wanted to incorporate masks. But, not just any masks; I wanted masks that could be easily taken on and off and not tamper with my guests' faces and hair. So I decided to get beautiful hand masks also from Oriental Trading.

As I constantly say, choosing three main colors to match your theme makes buying and creating decorations so much easier. The three main colors I chose for my party were gold, purple, & green. The hard thing about a Mardi Gras meets Masquerade theme is that there are a lot of color variations like royal purple, dark purple,light purple etc. so if you can stick to two or three stores that have your exact colors that is the safest route to go. For me I stuck with three: Oriental Trading, Michaels and Party City

Since Michaels and Party City were local stores, I used them to fulfill quick, basic decor needs like helium for my balloons, streamers, arts & crafts supplies, and cutlery/napkins/cups.

Remember in my HELLO KITTY Baby Shower blog I discussed the importance of MINOR DETAILS? Though I fulfilled my decor vision with physically bought decorations, I still needed to create decorations of my own that would serve as minor details. Stay tuned to see all the ways in which I implemented minor details!

How to Plan a Large Birthday Party-Part 1: Creating an Itinerary and Invitations

When planning a large birthday party, especially if it is going to require people to travel, you must FIRST outline the entire party in terms of what you will be doing on each day. The easiest way to do this is by opening up a Word document, writing out a 24 hour day and inputting things you would like to do on designated hours. This week I will get into more of that process, but for now, the most important thing to consider when guests need to fly/drive to your party is where they are going to stay. For my birthday party I wanted us to stay in the Beverly Hills/Hollywood area so I chose W Los Angeles-Westwood as our hotel to stay at. Why? W Los Angeles-Westwood has extremely spacious rooms and fit the trendy, young atmosphere that I wanted for my guests.

Now the WORST thing you can do is simply book a hotel and not check it out first. Go to the hotel and make sure that it fits all your explicit needs.

Another thing to keep in mind is how your guests will be getting around throughout your party. Especially when accommodating a large group, you must have clarity and structure with transportation so people don't get lost. To fix any hiccups along the way, I ordered a limo for the weekend. Other options could be a party bus or even setting up taxis. The limo company that I used was Five Star Limousine located in the Southern California area. There were punctual with excellent service!!

Once you have decided on an itinerary for your birthday party, created a potential guest list, and have chosen a theme with your main colors for your birthday party it's time to send out invitations! As much as I love hand making invites, there is another creative way and that is through Vistaprint! Since my theme was Mardi Gras meets Masquerade I chose a design that mirrored the theme.

Front

Back
Vistaprint makes everything from fliers, to banners, to business cards, to wedding invitations and so much more. You can customize things right down to the envelopes like I did!

*Click on the images to see a larger view :-)

There are a few key things that you must include on the invite: Dates of birthday party celebration, theme, location of venue/hotel, name and number of who to RSVP to, when to RSVP, special comments/criteria your guests should know. RSVPing is so crucial to the success of a party because it allows you to effectively plan and account for each individual. Later on this week we will discuss how to handle people who have not RSVP'd.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Decorations!!


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My Birthday Party-The Intro

Planning an event for a large group of people is definitely a huge task, but very rewarding when things go according to plan. This week I will feature my 23rd Birthday Party which was a Mardi Gras meets Masquerade theme. We will go through all the pre-planning that took place and I will give you tips on how you can make some of the decorations I made. Furthermore, I will provide you with all the necessary detail you need to have when planning a large birthday party! Click here :-)