A Simple, Affordable Daisy Themed First Birthday Party for Baby Girl

I grew up with my mom regularly hosting at least 25 people in the two bedroom apartment we lived in before they bought a house. Space never seemed to be a concern and I fondly remember cramming into me and my sister’s shared bedroom with my cousins to play with our toys.

When it came time to plan my own kid’s birthday party, though, I found myself stuck and overwhelmed. Despite single-handedly planning my wedding eight years ago (down to watercolor washing every single invitation myself), I was thoroughly unprepared and out of practice for what it takes to throw a kid’s birthday party. It took me three years to throw my oldest a proper birthday party and I learned a lot from the experience. I also figured out ways to make the whole thing more manageable going forward.

First, I kept the invite list small, even though I was tempted to make this party a big one for all the extended family. I’m First Generation Salvadoran-American, so even if I had tried to limit the guest list to just close family, we’d be up to 50 people before I knew it. Keeping the party to just siblings and parents meant kept the prep—and budget—under control. Between siblings and parents and significant others, we had 15 people celebrating Luna’s first year of life with us.

I like to focus my party decorations on the main dessert table. It makes for a great photo spot without being completely overwhelming.

We don’t have a garage where we could store multiple tables and chairs to use for parties, so I used what I had on hand to create this dessert table. The table itself is actually our IKEA desk from our tiny workspace! I placed it on top of our Midi+ Gathre mat to keep the dirt off of the legs and grabbed an old olive green flat sheet I had in the closet to use as a tablecloth.

I finished the table off with lots and lots of bunches of chamomile from Trader Joe’s arranged in little thrifted vases and jars we had.

I love a festive garland so this paper flower backdrop from Target was (almost) perfect. My sister and I hand painted the yellow centers on each flower to really give it the daisy look I was going for. It turned out so well and it was a pretty therapeutic craft!

Next were balloons. The 1 balloon was from Target, as were the big white confetti balloons. Note to self: skip these confetti balloons next time. They’re a pain to blow up and I could have definitely achieved the same impact by using a few smaller white balloons.

Finally, let’s talk about the cake, which is arguably the most important part of the day besides the birthday girl! I again kept things simple and made a yellow cake from a mix. It’s honestly my favorite kind of cake and it’s always a crowd pleaser. My sister fancied up the cake by making a meringue, mashmallow frosting and arranging flowers into an L (for Luna). In the spirit of using what we had, we placed the cake on a wooden plank from World Market that we used as a cake stand.

As we were planning the food for the party (crockpot shredded chicken tacos and all the fixings), I realized we had next to no serving plates. A couple trips to some Goodwills solved that really well! I came home with some really cool vintage bowls and containers. We kept drinks simple with sparkling water, apple juice boxes, and a carafe of lemonade that no one drank (ha!) 😅

It was a lovely day spent celebrating our dream girl. I’m so happy we got to pull something special together for her, especially with everything we had to skip while being pregnant during lockdown.

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