2 May 2022

Goldie’s Garden Party — First Birthday Celebrations

How in the world has it already been a year—a question I have been asking myself on repeat.

Sitting down to write this post has made me feel so emotional. I can barley believe that my tiny little baby is already a year old. I remember so many of those early moments like they were yesterday. They could have been yesterday. But they weren’t. Time is cruel, and wonderful at the same time. Watching her grow over the last year has truly been such a gift. Oh my goodness okay, I am going to cry. Let’s talk about her birthday party.

We threw a small party to celebrate her birthday the weekend of. We have been so cautious with everything so I wanted the party to be outside on our terrace, very small, and garden themed—especially since her birthday falls on Earth Day. A garden party it was.

I had slowly been collecting all of the pieces since ideating the concept (way too far in advance). JD has admitted that up until the day he had no idea what I was going for. I definitely drove him crazy about wrapping the sandwiches in butcher paper.

For favors I had matchbooks made in a simple design to commemorate the occasion. I used the same company that made our wedding matchbooks all the way back in 2017. I went with a simple design and tagline from my favorite movie, High Society. I don’t recall uploading your own design costing more back when we had our wedding matches made, but it does now and since I wasn’t ordering a ton I opted to create the design using their platform which was easy enough!

For the kids I made name crayons with garden critters. A post is on deck detailing that process and all of the details there!

Somewhere on Pinterest I had seen a photo of a planter used as a wine bucket and fell in love with that idea. The only thing I forgot was that a planter drains. Did not think that one through so you can see a plate beneath it so the table wouldn’t get soaked. It was still cute.

I also ended up using my favorite drinking glasses as vases for the table. This was completely unintentional. I had planned to use little milk bottles we had years ago but didn’t pull them down from storage in time.

The menu — For food I wanted to keep things “simple” and easy so we made a variety of sandwiches which were prosciutto with brie and fig jam, turkey avocado clubs, and curried chicken salad. As previously mentioned, I had this idea from a long ago saved pin to wrap them in brown butcher paper and garden twine. I thought that would make things cute and clean/easy to serve and pick up. I also made a kale salad with roasted sweet potatoes, chick peas, and avocado for a gluten free, vegan option. FYI this is the recipe I used. We also did mascarpone toasts with blueberries and raspberries for little bites.

We ordered her cake from Magnolia Bakery. We went with their classic confetti cake dotted with little daisies. Larissa was amazing at helping to bring my daisy cake vision to life, it was just perfect!

The party went well, I’m told. We were so busy the entire time I felt like I didn’t have the chance to speak to anyone aside from directing my sister on when to taken things out of the oven. We set up a small bubble machine for the kids which came out of her Easter basket. Then we moved inside for cake and goodbyes.