Birthday party post: The details

After months of planning and obsession, Dylan's 1st birthday party has come and gone. I won't try and deny that this party was mainly for me, but it was so fun creating an event to celebrate the first year of my Dylan Bug's life. I took tons and tons of pictures of the party, because I didn't want to just take pictures of the partygoers, but also focus on the details.

First things first, here is the invitation:

 My friend/amazing illustrator Meg was so sweet to design the invitations for the party. I told her what colors that I wanted to use, as well as requesting that Dylan's "D" be included and she had an amazing invite whipped up in a few days.

I had originally planned for the party to be inside, but on party day I realized that it would be so much easier to have it outside. That way no one would have to worry about food dropping on the ground, kids running around like maniacs, etc.

Here is a picture of the main treat table:

Aren't the tissue pom-poms fabulous? I had seen them used for a lot of parties on Kara's Party Ideas and I loved the look of them. Kara's party ideas served as inspiration for so much of the party. I was able to check out tons of adorable parties and pick little bits of a few parties that I loved and added them to my own party planning. A super-easy how-to for the pom-poms are found on Martha Stewart.

The "Happy Birthday Dylan" banner was just paper, glue dots, and ribbon.... and a whole lot of time. I think that things would be so much easier with a Cricut, but alas I don't have one. Sigh.

 Rather than doing a big cake or making cupcakes for the party, I decided to head to the best cupcakery in Utah County, The Cocoa Bean. I ordered mini cupcakes in Madagascar Vanilla Vanilla, Grasshopper, and Raspberry Chocolate Cheesecake. Yum.

I made the cupcake toppers with the help of a cut out stamp, lollipop sticks, and scrapbook paper. A little craft that did a lot to enhance the look of things.

I also made Cake Pops, which I found on Bakerellla.com. Fun treat without taking a ton of skill. Again, using red and blue sprinkles I was able to help tie things in to the beloved color scheme.

Dylan's smash cake was a huge hit. I was a little nervous how Dylan would react to a whole cake to himself, but he handled things like a champ!

Evidence of Dylan's smash cake enthusiasm:

 A final detail of the party? The entertainment.
I knew that there would be quite a few kids at the party and I knew that they would need something to do. I decided to do a little splurge and order up a bounce house.

I know, a little over the top for a baby's first birthday. It was such a great decision though- it was a huge hit! All of the kids loved it, as well as the adults! I would definitely recommend a bounce house for any party.

Get excited... I'll add party post part 2 within the next few days.