In keeping with the weekend's trend of kids' birthday parties, last night we attended K's 1st birthday party. K is currently the sole grandchild of my mother's former GP partner. He is also the lucky son of two doctors and four grandparent doctors. Crazy stuff.
As such, this was a 1st birthday party with a difference. True there were cakes and balloons. However, the scale was really rather big. For a start, it was held in The Conservatory of the Millennium Hotel in Kensington. A beautiful top floor glass pyramid type structure with huge up-lit palm trees, it was an awesome venue.
There were 20 tables each seating 12, all delightfully decked out. Rather than just a table number, the seating was designated according to the helium cartoon character balloon on your table - so I was seated at Bob the Builder's table, heehee. There were two 8 foot clowns made of balloons and a massive balloon arch spelling out K's name at the front of the room. The DJ had a sick system, and there was a raised platform in the middle where the magician/clown and the crazy jugglers performed (everything from face painting to juggling knives over people laying on the ground!) The cake was three tiered, huge and tasty, with massive single candle for K to blow out, and then loads of candles all around for the other kids. The AV crew were everywhere, there was a free bar, Ragamama's catering (yum yum) and party bags! An all out extravagant bash; my father even remarked that perhaps they had too much money...
Apart from the fun-ness of it all, as with D's wedding I really appreciated the attention to detail. The invitation itself was a personalised card with K's smiling face on the front, so cute. And on each place setting was a chocolate bar saying "K is 1, happy birthday" on one side, and "thank you for coming to my party, hope you had a great time, love K" on the back. The place cards were hand-caligraphed and the party bags were fun boxes too (I don't really know how I got one, but anyway...) Here are some of the exciting random things in my bag...
Essentially then, a very good time, and another raising of the bar for the most lavish party to be held, let alone for a one-year-old who went to bed before dinner!
There were 20 tables each seating 12, all delightfully decked out. Rather than just a table number, the seating was designated according to the helium cartoon character balloon on your table - so I was seated at Bob the Builder's table, heehee. There were two 8 foot clowns made of balloons and a massive balloon arch spelling out K's name at the front of the room. The DJ had a sick system, and there was a raised platform in the middle where the magician/clown and the crazy jugglers performed (everything from face painting to juggling knives over people laying on the ground!) The cake was three tiered, huge and tasty, with massive single candle for K to blow out, and then loads of candles all around for the other kids. The AV crew were everywhere, there was a free bar, Ragamama's catering (yum yum) and party bags! An all out extravagant bash; my father even remarked that perhaps they had too much money...
Apart from the fun-ness of it all, as with D's wedding I really appreciated the attention to detail. The invitation itself was a personalised card with K's smiling face on the front, so cute. And on each place setting was a chocolate bar saying "K is 1, happy birthday" on one side, and "thank you for coming to my party, hope you had a great time, love K" on the back. The place cards were hand-caligraphed and the party bags were fun boxes too (I don't really know how I got one, but anyway...) Here are some of the exciting random things in my bag...
Essentially then, a very good time, and another raising of the bar for the most lavish party to be held, let alone for a one-year-old who went to bed before dinner!
