A few weeks ago, my baby boy turned one. ONE. Excuse me while I go wipe the tears from my eyes. I am so excited for the little man he is becoming but miss my little, snuggly baby. Watching him grow and learn has been the most wonderful experience.

Now, I wasn’t sure what to expect from a first birthday party, or even where to begin to plan throwing one. Children can be very unpredictable with their moods, do you serve alcohol, how long should it last, do people really wanna watch him ‘open gifts’ [eat the paper].

After all the stress and craziness – it ended up being the perfect day and truly a ONEderful party. See all the details here! 

INVITES: 

I thought about designing these myself, but the stress of that deterred me. I found these perfect, customizable invites on Zazzle and there was no doubt! I just put a start time, I planned it for right after his nap when I knew he’d be happiest. He was ONEderful the entire party. It flowed nicely, as things slowed we’d do cake or presents. Ours started at 2pm and people hung around until 6pm – some of our friends even later.

DECORATIONS: 

I printed out all of his monthly photos using Amazons Prime photo service. [fast & cheap] Using twine I strung these up for the guests to ohh and ahh over how much hes grown.

I also had gold, black and white balloon garlands all over the house, as well as a few ‘G’ and ‘1’ balloons strung up.

For his cake smash area, I bought a gold fringe door curtain and taped it up on the wall. I handmade his chair decoration by cutting up construction paper for the black and gold ONE signs and tied and glued various ribbons to the twine. We also bought a giant black 1 balloon for his chair. [Don’t forget to put a table cloth down to make cake smash clean up easy!]

FOOD:

Yes, serve alcohol! It’s a kids party but the adults should enjoy themselves also.

I had the main course catered by Chipotle. I wasn’t sure what to expect but their catering was AMAZING! It came with everything you could possibly need, as well as so much food. [We were asking people to take to-go bowls] This was a bit pricey, but after factoring in buying all sorts of other food and then slaving away cooking it, etc during the party – it was well worth the cost. Highly recommend.

I made the cupcake and smash cake myself. Typical funfetti cake with white icing. I topped the cupcakes with adorable black and gold mustache & bowtie toppers from, ETRcreations. Gunnar’s cake was topped with a ‘Happy Birthday’ overlay and chocolate sprinkles on the sides.

MR. ONEDERFUL’S OUTFIT:

My favorite part of this entire thing was Gunnar’s shirt. He wore a customized shirt from HappyBrooke. It was beautifully made and perfect for his special day!

After all is said and done, it was a great day. He won’t remember it but it made for good photos and memories for all of us.