Aloha!! Our girl turned one & we had the BEST time celebrating her. I have so many pictures to share & will get to that in a minute! I was so excited to plan this party. I picked the Aloha One theme when she was around 6 months. I wanted to do something Island themed because Isla comes from Island. Plus with her birthday being in the heat of the summer, it worked perfect for an outdoor pool party. I also knew I wanted to save as much money as I could so we would be doing a lot of DIY for it!
I had the pleasure of working with some amazing vendors! Vendors for everything are shared below. I have also linked as much as I possibly can in regards to decor that we bought.
Vendors:
- Photography – McKayla Bee Photography was kind enough to come shoot Isla’s party. Mind you, she has a 2 week old newborn at home! She shot my baby shower as well. She is the kindest persona and I love the bright and clean look of her photos. I highly suggest hiring a photographer or even having a friend take photos on your phone of your child’s party. By having her take pictures, I was able to be fully present with Isla and not worrying about taking pictures the entire time.
- Event Styling – Like I said, I wanted to DIY as much as I possibly could to save money. I had a lot of ideas and knew basically everything I wanted. I just needed help, tricks, and tips on pulling all of it together. That is where Chelsey Flint Events came into play. She told me where to order balloons from, how to build a professional looking balloon garland, offered to let us use her big letters and gorgeous white bounce house. What is even cooler is because of Isla’s party, Chelsey got the idea of offering a DIY package to customers now! You can now have her style your event, tell you what to get, gift you her tips and tricks, and you put the entire thing together!
- Cookies – I always love having personalized cookies at events. I love how custom they always are to each client. I went to college and was in the same sorority with Mara of Miss Mara’s Cookies! She hasn’t been doing cookies very long, but you wouldn’t be able to tell when looking at all fo her cookies. They are amazing!!
- Food – I think I was most stressed about food over anything else.. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to buy a ton of food, just do little snacks, or something else. I tried Bondi Bowls for the first time and immediately thought, “this would go perfect with the beachy theme of the party.” Bondi Bowls offers smoothie bowls, snow cones, lemonades, teas, and coffee. It was a HUGE hit! I also decided to make a few charcuterie boards in case people wanted more than a smoothie bowl. I love making these boards for get togethers. They look fancy and so put together, but they are literally just thrown together in minutes!
- Cake – I think I want my last meal to be cake from Amy Cakes lol.. They are soooo good and well worth the drive to Norman to pickup. She kills it every time on her cakes and the design. She also did our wedding cake! With first birthday cakes they actually include the smash cake at no extra charge! Make sure you email very early if you want her cakes for an event, because she books fast!
Decorations:
- My entire plan was to use balloons as the main decor. I really didn’t buy anything else decor wise. Chelsey told me what balloons to order, what sizes to order, and where to order from. I bought the brand Olaplex. I bought majority of them from All American Balloons, however, I couldn’t get them all because some were out of stock. I ended up finding the OOS ones on Amazon. They were more expensive on Amazon, but luckily I didn’t need a ton from there. I bought 1,600 balloons y’all…. We had about 300 leftover. They would’ve gotten used, but we just ran out of time so we didn’t get to them. Balloons are a cheap way (when done DIY) to make a party look amazing!
- The backdrop behind the cake table was made by my dad. It was way cheaper to make than to find somewhere to rent one. I told him I wanted it 8X8 and he bought what was needed. I am not 100% sure what all he did, but I know he bought two boards that were 4×8 each. To connect them he bought a huge hinge. This was awesome because it was able to open and close like a book which made transport easy. He put a wood border around it to help secure it and make it stand straight and not be flimsy. After that he painted it white!
- I love adding floral to events. I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it was so clever and cute. We gutted two pineapples and use them as vases for the flowers which went on the cake table. I had plenty of extra flowers to do more arrangements, but ran out of time!
- An idea I got from one of Chelsey’s events was to use a baby pool as an ice chest for drinks! I had already bought two fo these pools when I first thought Isla’s party would be at our house and not my sisters. So I sued one of them for the drinks and threw in some fake palm leaves.
Here are a ton more pf my favorite pictures from the day!! I wish I could share them all, but there are soooo many!
Well, I think that basically covers everything!! It was the best day and worth all the stress and rushing the day of to set up. Now what to do for her 2nd birthday?!
XO, Kelsey
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