Emilia's 1st Birthday Garden Party

Emilia’s 1st birthday party was a success! I’m still in disbelief my baby girl turned 1, it’s amazing how fast the time goes. The past 12 months have been the best year of our lives, thanks to our sweet girl. She deserved the most special celebration. Despite the weather being a complete washout, we had an amazing day celebrating Emmi’s birthday. I’m pretty sure she had the best day of her life too!

MY DRESS

1ST BIRTHDAY GARDEN PARTY

INSPIRATION

(photos via pinterest)

When I started planning Emilia’s birthday party, a garden party theme immediately came to mind. It seemed like the perfect time of year to throw a party full of pretty blooms and flower crowns. I did a little browsing on Pinterest and collected the following images that seemed to capture my vision perfectly. I decided on a white, ivory, blush and peach color palette with greenery and gold accents.

Keep scrolling to see how these Pinterest photos inspired the decor, desserts and favors for Emila’s 1st birthday garden party! You can follow me on Pinterest HERE!

FLORALS

All the flower arrangements at Emilia’s birthday party were designed by PENTIMENTO, a local flower shop in Connecticut. I have worked with the owner of the shop, Sarah, several times in the past and always loved her creations. With very little direction from me, she designed the most beautiful floral arrangements for the party that fit my vision perfectly. I couldn’t have been happier with the final result.

Pentimento provided all floral arrangements, cake flowers, balloon florals and high chair swag for our party. Sarah used a mixture of blush, light peaches, cream and ivory flowers in her designs, mixed with fresh cascading greenery for a beautiful “garden chic” look. Below is a sampling of the flowers varieties incorporated into each arrangement.

PENTIMENTO is located on Main Street in Suffield, CT and specializes in wedding and event floral design. If you’ve planned an event before, you know the people you hire are just as important as the product they provide. Sarah is extremely talented and such a pleasure to work with. She takes the time to get to know you and your personal style, as well as your vision for the event. She’s passionate about her work and goes out of her way to ensure the final designs are exactly what you had in mind.

If you’re local, I highly recommend stopping by their storefront as well. Pentimento is the cutest little shop and is so fun to browse through. Sarah selects the most unique items to display in the shop along with fresh plants, flowers and seasonal gifts.

Keep scrolling to see the beautiful creations designed by Pentimento for our little girls special day.

BALLOON GARLAND

I knew I wanted a balloon garland to hang above our dessert table, similar to the photo from my vision board. Rather than hire out for this task, I attempted this project on my own and bought a BALLOON GARLAND KIT from Etsy (I ordered the Premium 8-10 ft option.) I absolutely love the way it came out, but will admit it was no easy task!

There were a lot of balloons and they were all double layered making it difficult to blow up and tie (the double layering allows for “custom colors” like these beautiful pinks, blushes and peaches you see.) This kit includes a hand pump which was helpful, but an electric pump would have been better! After several hours we ended up getting it done and I love the way it came out. I’d say go for it if you’re up for the challenge and want to save some money, otherwise just hire a professional company to do it!

We also ordered this exact garland in a smaller size (petite 4-6ft) to decorate with (scroll down to the MARQUEE LETTER section below to see the size difference.)

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I also 100% recommend grabbing this balloon pump to blowing up balloons – whether you get this kit or not! I use it all the time and makes life so much easier.

DESSERTS

Whats more important at a birthday party than the desserts?! I worked with a local bakery, MONETA MOMENTS, to create floral cupcakes and cake pops for our guests. Not only were these sweet treats stunning to look at, they were the best cupcakes I ever tasted! We did a mix of vanilla + chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting. I had many guests comment on how delicious they were. Scroll down for a closer look at the detail put into each one – truly a work of art!

Moneta Moments also made Emilia’s birthday cake. We went with a 6″ naked style cake that was decorated with a simple white frosting and florals provided by Pentimento. If you scroll down to the photo of Emilia eating her cake, you can see just how much enjoyed it! Watching her eat her birthday cake was definitely the highlight of the entire day.

MONETA MOMENTS is a mother and daughter team located in Windsor, CT with a passion for creating cupcakes and other sweet treats for holidays and special events. They came highly recommended! The duo was incredibly sweet and fun to work with. We were beyond happy with the desserts provided and can’t wait to work with them again in the future.

I also hired a friend of mine to make the most beautiful cookies for the celebration. They came out stunning! So much detail went into making these sweet treats that were decorated to match our theme and color scheme perfectly!

NAME SIGN

Emilia’s NAME SIGN that hung above her dessert table was an AMAZON find (also available on ETSY.) The seller was great to work with and offers many different sizes, finishes and font options. We got the 36″ MDF – 3/8″ thickness in font Spring Breeze. I chose the unfinished option and painted it using this ANTIQUE GOLD SPRAY PAINT.

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INVITES

Emilia’s INVITES were designed online and came out beautifully. I was able to find a pre-made design that fit our theme perfectly. The site we used was extremely user-friendly and the invite was also completely customizable. We added all the important party details and tweaked a few things to make it perfect for our event. We also added a personalized photo to the back.

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MARQUEE NUMBER

I always wanted an excuse to decorate with marquee numbers/letters and Emilia’s birthday seemed like the perfect time to do so! We worked with ALPHA-LIT RHODE ISLAND to display this fun number “1” as part of her birthday decor. The letters are 3-4 feet tall and light up. I ordered a second smaller BALLOON GARLAND KIT (petite 4-6ft) to drape on the side.

Alpha-LIT Rhode Island serves both RI and CT, renting letters and numbers for all your special events. You can visit ALPHALITLETTERS.COM to see locations across the country.

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MONTHLY PHOTOS

Over the past year, I took monthly photos of Emila wearing cute little pink outfits. It’s so fun to look back at these to see how much she changed from month to month! I thought our guests would appreciate seeing these as well, so I decided to incorporate the photos into our decor for the party. This can be easily recreated by printing each photo via SHUTTERFLY in a matte finish and framing them with white card stock. They are hung using this PHOTO DISPLAY that is equipped with twine and mini clothes pins.

I often get asked what kind of camera I use to take photos of Emila. I use a THIS MIRRORLESS CAMERA with THIS LENS and edit all my photos in Lightroom.

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FAVORS

For Emilia’s birthday party favors I wanted to gift our guests with something they could enjoy long after the party. Seeing as the theme was a “garden party” I decided to plant seeds of Sweet Alyssum in little mini pots. I ordered 3″ TERRACOTTA POTS that I wrapped with JUTE TWINE and filled with dirt and a pinch of SWEET ALYSSUM SEEDS in each. Carefully cover the seeds with a very light layer of soil and topped them off with a cute WATCH ME GROW TAG. I was happy to see that the seeds started sprouting just a week after planting them!

I also included a framed sign with directions on how to care for Sweet Alyssum and encouraged my guest to snap a photo to take with them. We also potted a sweet alyssum plant to show our guests what the flowers would look like once grown. I used several of these potted Sweet Alyssum plants as centerpieces on the guest tables as well (not photographed). It was nice being able to reference what the seeds would look like once flowered.

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FLORAL CROWNS

I also wanted to add a fun accessory for our guests – particularly the kids that would be attending – so I purchased these cute FLORAL CROWNS for them wear throughout the party. They look pretty displayed inside an antique gold frame, hung with mini clothes pins on jute twine. They fit both adults and children.

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https://urlgeni.us/amzn/flowercrown

EMILIA’S OUTFIT

As I mentioned earlier in this post, the weather was not in our favor the day of Emilia’s party. It was a complete downpour which meant we had to rethink many aspects of the day – including her outfit! I originally planned on her wearing a PINK TUTU layered with a BIRTHDAY TEE, which matched her invites and was personalized with her name on the back. She still wore this outfit but we had to layer it with a CHUNKY SWEATER and KNEE HIGH SOCKS to accommodate the chilly temps. This was an easy fix and she looked adorable! Here is another TUTU + FLORAL CROWN option that is a little more affordable and sold as a set.

For the big event – her cake eating – she wore the cutest RUFFLE BIB. This bib is waterproof, washable and easy to clean. It looked like it was made for her outfit! These bibs are also extra-wide, comfortable and include a food catcher pocket. Despite cake all over her face, her outfit stayed mess-free!

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DONATIONS

In lieu of birthday gifts, we invited our guests to bring an unwrapped toy for donation. We thought this would be a great way to donate to children in need and our guests were more than happy to participate! If you’re local, here are some of the donation centers that were recommended in the CT/MA area: