Styling: Alexis Teasdale
Photography: Lauren Trompp
Well! This one didn’t exactly go as planned!
For those that follow me on Instagram, you would have read a little about the hilarity of the morning of this party. The full story is at the bottom of the post, but for now, enjoy some sunshine-y pics for my beautiful little Gabe’s first birthday, which was full of love and laughter. Lots of laughter.
Favours were in old-school style popcorn boxes and had a fun animal mask, plus a slinky and kids silly sunnies from Woolies. This year I had names on them so they had age appropriate goodies, seeing as we had kids from 1 week old (soz Evie, you didnt get anything ha) to 8 years old.
I call this story ‘Why you always need a back-up plan. Even when it’s going to be 26 and sunny and you have the perfect garden for parties.’
As always, I love to be crazy prepared so it’s not too hectic in the hours leading up to party-time. Especially with two little kids who are excited, there’s only so much you can do on the day. So the night before I was hanging ticket bunting, inflating games, and setting up an EPIC balloon popping wall (more on that later) when I thought I could smell something, how can I say, whiffy. Without going into too much detail there was an issue with sewage pipes in our garden. Oh joy. But not to panic! After some calls to the plumber and the promise of someone showing up at 7am, I was confident that it would all be taken care of and was far enough from the party to not pose any stinky threat to guests. PHEW.
Relaxed too soon. Way too soon.
I woke early the next morning to sneak out into the garden and finish some things before the kiddies woke, and noticed that there were a few bees buzzing around. Weird. Not ideal. It wasn’t until a few hours later (2 hours before the party started) when I had a proper look at the tree in the middle of the garden and noticed a full-on BEE NEST inside the trunk. Hundreds of buzzing little party-poopers just doing their thing.
SIGH.
Ironically the plumber was already there with some scary-looking heavy duty machinery, but alas, the party had to move because hundreds of bees and loads of little (and big) people at a party is just not a good combination. And there was the whiffy element too, I guess. It was a sign. No party in this garden today.
OH SIGH.
It was time to put on my Plan B pants (not literally, I actually threw on my outfit which was thankfully laid out already, but involved a lot of white) and I was thanking my lucky stars that my brother-in-law has a ute. He whizzed over, we threw everything that wasn’t stuck to a wall in the boot and zipped down to the local park.
The beauty of using Paperless Post is that I could send a speedy update changing the location, and while it went to most people’s email addresses on a weekend, a lot of people still saw it. We popped a note on the door saying the party had moved and legged it.
The amazing vendors I was using for balloons and entertainment all changed delivery seamlessly like total legends and really, once everything was there it was a cinch to set up, with my trusty #festivecofam member Cassidy.
T’was a shame no one will see the massive wall backdrop of carnival tokens I’d made, or the dart-free jumbo balloon popping station which took a lot of DIY (I’m determined to still set it up and take some pics to show you all, it would be great for a carnival/circus party) but as I always tell brides, not EVERYTHING will run to plan. It just won’t. But that’s FINE. Because the point of a celebration, party, wedding, what-have-you is to be with your friends and family. To be surrounded by love and laughter and to just enjoy each others company. All the fancy bits are just icing on the cake.
