*This post was sponsored by Uber, but all opinions are my own.
So planning a first birthday party felt a lot like planning my wedding. I had some friends who opted out of having one, because babies are not going to remember it anyway, but I felt like it was more of a party for Matt and I to celebrate the fact that we did this thing for a full year, and we survived! Plus, I feel super loved when I look back at my own first birthday party pictures, and I wanted Hudson to feel the same way. So, party planning commenced!
I started planning about a month and a half in advance, and only left a few last minute errands such as picking up the cake, filling the cooler and grabbing beer until the day-of. The actual day of the party went super smoothly, and a lot of it was thanks to uberX. My mom and I used it to get around town to pick up the cake, some utensils, some ice and some last minute things without the hassle of having to keep finding parking on a Saturday. SO convenient! Here’s my steps for planning Hudson’s party, and more deets!
Step 1: Pick a theme! This one was tough for me, because I of course wanted to do fox theme, but didn’t want to be so predictable. I thought about Hudson, and how the Hudson valley inspired his name, and I landed on a plaid / upstate / camping type theme. I asked everyone to wear plaid, and grabbed all of the things that I love about upstate NY – Cozy flannels, buffalo check, campfires, deer heads, and all of the cabin vibes! I was so excited when we finally chose the theme, because then the fun began!
Step 2: Choose a Venue – This one was easy for us, we just moved into a new home, so we decided to have the party there! Call around to all of your favorite local spots if your house can’t fit everyone. If it’s summertime, a pool or a park is a perfect spot as well! We thought about hosting it at a venue in town, but kept coming back to the ease of setting up in our own home, and having guests hanging around after the party for a more intimate feeling, which is what ended up happening.
Step 3: Send out invites! I used paperless post to save paper and money, and collected all of our friends and family’s e-mail addresses. I sent them out about 1.5 months in advance so people could mark their calendars.
Step 4: Find Your Vendors: About a month out, we booked all of our vendors. We rented chairs and tables, picked a cake baker and ordered the food for the day. It took a while to collect local recommendations for all of these, but I asked my local mom group on facebook, and they were the best source! Also ask your mom friends, your babysitters and anyone who is around children!
Step 5: Order Decorations: Give yourself some time on this one as well, because a lot of online sites for this take a few weeks! I ordered table cloths, napkins, cups, plates, a photo booth backdrop, props and a ton of fun decor for the house and the dessert table.
Step 6(Day Of!): On the day of the party, I quickly finished decorating the cupcakes that I made myself. Then my mom and I used the incredible multiple destinations option on uberX to run errands around town. With this option, you can now select a ride with multiple stops, which makes it so easy to just run in and grab something and have the car waiting for you! It’s a dream, and its SO convenient. It truly saved us before the party started at 2PM. We also synced our calendar into the app, so we knew where we had to be, and when! The cake pickup was 11AM, the food pickup was 1PM, and we of course had to snap some pictures to remember the day in between! There’s nothing worse than trying to dig up an address or an appointment time when you’re in a hurry or running late. Once you connect your calendar to Uber, your phones native calendar appears as a “shortcut” in the app, so you can get where you need to go without sifting through e-mails!
Here we are grabbing the cake – I was on cloud 9. It came out sooo perfect, and exactly what I had envisioned! We grabbed our uberX back home, and just in time to get dressed and all set up for the party! More pictures from the actual party coming soon…
