We have ANOTHER one year old and no, I’m not ok!! I thought the first year with Graham flew by but WOW did Sonny’s first year fly by in lightning speed. I tossed around the idea of not throwing a big birthday party for Sonny but I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t. I wanted to still keep it somewhat casual and chill but I did want a theme and of course make the day feel special for Sonny and for us as a family.
The fun part of planning this theme and birthday party was that a lot of what I used for Graham’s first birthday party could also be used for Sonny’s first birthday party!
The Theme
The theme of ‘sun’ easily came to me, because, obviously, Sonny. He’s been such a true ray of sunshine in our lives and this theme of One in the Sun was the perfect way to celebrate his first year! I wanted to stick to the colors of yellow…good thing butter yellow is trending right now! I planned to have the party outside at a park that’s on the river by our house. It’s the perfect backdrop for a beautiful, blue sky, sunny day, and would be a more than perfect location for a One in the Sun birthday party. Unfortunately in rained the day or and we last minute (morning of) decided to have it in our house instead.
The Invitations
After deciding on the theme, I knew exactly one piece of design I wanted the invitation to have. The sun I made for Graham’s first birthday party invitations would be perfect for the main part and the back of Sonny’s invitation! I originally made the sun in Procreate on my iPad and used the same paint colors from my sun Procreate design for the letters in the invite. I looked up some other design ideas on Pinterest and found a cute background idea with squiggly, scalloped edges. I made the squiggle, scalloped edges in Illustrator and I created the whole invite in InDesign.
The Food, Drinks, and Desserts
When first deciding to have this birthday party, I still wanted some element of casual. I decided that basic finger sandwiches and assorted pizzas would be perfect. Since the party would be outdoors and all of the children would be running around, a catered meal of sitting down with forks and knives just didn’t sound like something that fit.
The platters of sandwiches from a local deli (Lenny’s Colonial Ranch Market in Point Pleasant!) were a mix of their sloppy sandwiches and regular finger sandwiches. We also got a tray of chicken tenders from Lenny’s for the kiddies (but you know all the adults would eat them too!). The pizzas we ordered were assorted including plain, veggie, sausage and peppers, pepperoni, and buffalo chicken.
Lemonade with sliced lemons, water with sliced lemons and oranges, and assorted Perrier seltzers with flavors of lemon, orange, and peach were the perfect drinks to stay on theme and look cute while doing so! Of course we had lots of other beverages but I always find it important to have some displayed that are on theme.
The dessert is what I love to focus on because, yes, I have a major sweet tooth, but also it can be so cute! I like to include some type of candy to be on theme and this time I chose starbursts (colors are perfect for the theme!) and some new Sour Patch peaches. They are like a delicious, slightly sour peach ring…again the colors are perfect for the theme!
I made Sonny’s cake like I did for Graham’s and I used the same cake topper. Making their cakes is so special to me. This year, I had special help making it from Graham! I just use box cake mix but I make the buttercream icing which is insanely delicious.
I decided to make a batch of cupcakes with the same butter cream icing and did two different icings- one white with yellow sprinkles, and one yellow that I piped on top with a plastic baggie LOL. We also bought some store bought cupcakes so there was a mix of chocolate in there too.
The star of the show really are the custom sugar cookies I get from a local baker. They are so incredibly delicious and designs are outrageous with how perfect they are!! I give her some inspiration pictures from Pinterest and let her know the colors I like to stick with. Like how PERFECT are they?!
The Decorations
The party was supposed to be outside at a park on the river with a pavilion but it decided to pour all day so we last minute pivoted and moved it inside to our house.
I wanted to have two main backdrop features. One would be a DIY fringe garland and the other would be arched backdrop stands using honeycomb balls that I used for Graham’s birthday party. The fringe garland was an easy but time consuming DIY using tablecloths. I added the honeycomb balls and fans to the smaller arched backdrop and displayed Sonny’s monthly milestone pictures on the other.
I sprinkled in some flowers around including real and faux. Can you even spot the faux ones?! A yellow striped table runner was used on our credenza table in our dining room that we used as our dessert table. The beverage dispensers were real stars on their own because of how beautiful they were and I used the dispensers with the sliced lemons and oranges in them as a decor piece.
The beverage dispensers were real starts on their own because of how beautiful they were and I used the dispensers with the sliced lemons and oranges in them as a decor piece. I was able to find cups, plates, and napkins that all stayed on the sun theme but were not a set which I really liked. They were all slightly different so it wasn’t perfectly matchy matchy.
I also found a super cute little one banner for his chair!
The Playlist
If you’ve been around my blog or socials before, you know I have a playlist for everything and anything. I actually started curating this playlist right after Sonny was born. We didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl so once we had Sonny, all of these ‘sun’ themed songs started playing in our heads and we immediately kept listening to them. I added them to a playlist and we listen to it regularly so we knew it had to be the background music for Sonny’s first birthday!
Save this post as inspiration for a future first birthday party!
