Elia’s First Birthday Party – A Unicorn Wonderland

I seriously cannot believe I am the mother of a 1-year old. This year flew by so quickly.

Planning your child’s first birthday is hard for a few reasons:

1. You have no idea what they would like for a theme. Or, if you miraculously figure out how to decode your baby, you probably won’t be able to do much with what they like. If I had to guess, Elia would probably have picked “cheese” as her theme, since it’s the only thing she will eat or say.

2. Your child probably doesn’t have a ton of friends yet. Or at least mine doesn’t, so who will you invite? #loner

3. Anything you do now, your child most likely isn’t going to remember.

Well, as a first-time mom, I can tell you that the 1st birthday is really to celebrate the fact that you kept a human alive for an entire year (without totally jumping off the deep-end yourself!) That’s a really BIG Deal. You should 100% celebrate it, invite all your friends (and the small handful of friends your child has probably ignored or crawled over in music class) and create a special moment for YOU to celebrate. Your kids will still look at photos some day and realize how cool you are. 🙂

For Elia’s first birthday, I decided on a Unicorn theme because I’m totally obsessed with them. They are beautiful, etherial, magical and enchanting. Plus, I thought Elia would like really cute with a unicorn headband!

Since party planning can be a little stressful (especially planning one for your child in the first year), here were the 5 things that helped me plan her birthday party:

1) Choose the right location! When I picked the unicorn theme, it was important for me to find a place that already fit that vibe (so I wouldn’t break the bank on decorations).  I decided to go with By The Park in Lincoln Park. It’s a small cookie shop with the most adorable decor and a totally transformable space. It’s really affordable to rent the shop and the food, drinks and booze (if you want to go that route) are all BYO. For a small additional cost, they also provide all the cookies/cakes/cakepops and seriously do the most amazing job.

Just look at the spread they created for Elia…

2) Hire a party planner, florist and/or decorator. Listen, we all can’t be Martha Stewart, right? If it’s one thing I’ve learned in life, trust the experts. Just by spending a little extra money, I didn’t have to do anything for this party beyond an initial meeting. For Elia’s birthday, I worked with Ozzie from Gromeza Floral Design Studio and it was the best decision I made.

I met with Ozzie about 3 weeks before the party, explained my vision to him (and what my budget was) and off he went. When I tell you he did everything, I’m not exaggerating. He did the florals, the balloons, the decorations and linens. He was the true mastermind behind the entire event. Did I also mention he set everything up so there was no stress on me the day of? Look at what he created…

Insane right? I could only wish to have a creative mind and vision like Ozzie…

He also partnered with a couple of people to bring his entire vision to life. He worked with signage expert, Delaina Doshi (@delaina_j on Instagram) to create this amazing welcome chalk board.

We also outsourced the INCREDIBLE unicorn balloons to Ilyssa Minkus from @madebyilyssa. She also made adorable unicorn goody bags. Seriously, how cute are these?

In the goodybags, I  included “Unicorn Fluff” from The Cotton Candy Lady. She makes such amazing stuff and it was incredibly delicious. I couldn’t be more obsessed. You can check out her shop, here.

3) Dress the part. Since I was having a unicorn theme, I had to make sure that we were dressed for the occasion. For Elia, I ordered her this entire custom outfit (including the headband) from this Etsy shop.

I wore a etherial-vibe romper from First Harvest Boutique. Not only do they sell the most amazing pieces, but 10% of their proceeds go to help women who have suffered abuse or sex trafficking victims.  It’s also fun to tell your friends and family the theme ahead of time so they can dress the part as well!

4) Have yummy (and easy) food! With so much going on in terms of planning and execution for a first birthday, I decided stick with what I love and go with my all-time favorite pizza shop for Elia’s Birthday! Can anyone guess? Of course, it’s Happy Camper! I loved how the owner, Josh, took my unicorn theme and ran with it. Even the pizzas were fun and colorful.

5) Hire a photographer. If it’s not on Instagram, it didn’t really happen, right? In all seriousness, you want to capture every moment of this big day, so you 100% need to hire a photographer. Don’t hesitate for a second when booking Tek Chung from Tekstiles. He did all the photography and is my go-to for ANY event photography.

So, how do you think I did?! Do you have any other tips for throwing a birthday party?

Love always,
Erica

All photos were shot by Tek Chung.