PERSONAL: [dylan's | 1st bday | party]

A little over a year ago, very good friends of ours had an adorable baby boy who they named Dylan. Being that Dylan is half Korean (half Chinese), it's in the Korean culture to throw a huge "wedding-like" 1st birthday party called Doljabi. In the past, there were high death rates in Korea and it was a milestone for the babies who were able to make it to their 1st birthdays. So when a baby made it to 12 month the whole town would come together to celebrate and that tradition is carried on to this day.

But with a baby who's already running around (yes, running!) before he turned 1, my friend Mina had her work cut out for her. As you can only imagine it was hard for her to get everything done by herself with an active baby around. So I was more than happy when she took me up on my offer to help out. I love to plan parties, it's so much fun!... minus the cost of everything. lol

The party planning process started out with picking the theme and Mina decided to have a vintage circus theme. Which I think was super cute and genius. It was kid-like but yet still for the adults as well. She then purchased some cute DIY vintage circus printables & invitations by The Candy Tree. From there I was able to create, manipulate and edit the files to work perfectly for the party. As well as any additional graphic that we needed to tie everything together.

As for the venue, they chose the beautiful South Coast Botanical Gardens with a huge open grass area which was perfect are for the kids to run around and play. I didn't think we'd even use the whole area but the kids took full advantage of the space.

I don't know about you but when I think of a circus, one of the first things I think of are those red and white tents. And what would a circus themed party be without those tents, right?! It would just be another party with balloon and food. One of my biggest suggestions for the party was to somehow pulling off the look of red and white tenting on a budget. Luckily, the South Coast Botanical Gardens area that they had picked out already had a wooden awning that we were able to hang things from. From there we did our research on how we could pull this look off without blowing their whole budget on just the tenting and Mina came up with the great idea of using the table covers that come in rolls... genius! With the tent, 30" balloons, signage and all the other little details a wonderful vintage circus 1st birthday party for Dylan was made.

Most of the planning was Mina and I just gave her my suggestions and ideas that were based off her original ideas. So great job, Mina! I think we made a great team along with the help of all of our friends and pulled off an amazing party for her son, Dylan's 1st birthday. It was so rewarding when we were all setting up for the party and people were coming by asking if we were event planners because it looked so nice and professional. Maybe Mina and I have a new career path in our future. ha ha!





To see more photo and vendors Mina used go to Krista Mason Photography's blog.

PS. the Balloon Twister: David Nguyen is absolutely life of the party and the best Balloon Twister i've ever seen. He's so creative and comes up with this you'd never think you'd be able to make from balloons. Well worth the money! My husband wants to hire him for no special occasion just for David to make him balloons. ha!

xx
j