Kids Party Planning: A Guide to Organizing the Order of Events
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Organizing the order of events for your kid’s party is no easy feat, not when you don’t know where to start. So, here’s a guide to help you get started.
A kid’s party can be a great source of parental stress. There’s just a lot of things to decide and consider, plus the wall-high expectations of everyone, especially of your child, are not that easy to handle.
Whether you are booking a venue or holding the party at home, planning and preparing ahead of time will make everything a lot easier for you. This also ensures that everything will turn out smoothly on the day of the party.
At the end of the day, your kid’s birthday party is all about having fun while bringing everyone together. Keeping this in mind as you plan your kid’s party will redirect you into the right path, specifically in making major party planning decisions.
Regardless of the date or venue, almost all parties require the same skills. Depending on how simple or grand your kid’s party, you will want to stay organized with the best practices to prepare yourself for your child’s big day.
Luckily for you, we have created this guide to organizing the order of events at your kid’s party. With this, you’ll be able to plan your kid’s party, step by step, without missing a single item, activity, or deadline.
Table of Contents
Organizing the Order of Events: 2-3 Months Before
Depending on how experienced you are in party planning, the time of the year, and how simple or grand your kid’s party is, you might want to start planning as soon as you can. Remember, planning a kid’s party doesn’t happen overnight!
Choose a Theme
One of the biggest parts of planning a big kid’s party is deciding on the theme. When you don’t have a theme, then you won’t know what decorations you should buy.
You also won’t know what kind of cake will match the party. In short, you will not know where exactly you should start.
When choosing your kid’s party, do not forget what your child really wants. You can ask him about it or if not, choose one based on the things that interest him.
Let’s admit it. Choosing a theme based on what your kid loves is still the most effective way of ensuring that he will enjoy his party.
Determine Your Budget
No one can order you how much you should spend on your kid’s party. You can actually spend as much as you want, as long as you don’t go broke after it.
Planning a great party, after all, is like everything that is good in life, it all comes with a price tag. Giant balloon installations, three-tier drip cakes, and over-the-top floral arrangements all come with a price.
The truth is, a kid’s party that looks amazing in all aspects is not cheap at all. That is very far from what people think that Kardashian-style kid’s parties can be bought on a penny-pincher budget.
But generally speaking, a kid’s party actually costs around $30–$60 per person. On average, you will be spending anywhere from $300–$10,000+. Yes, you can spend as much as that, or even more on your kid’s party.
Book a Venue
If you are holding your kid’s party somewhere else, might as well do it as soon as possible. Looking for a venue, especially during peak seasons, isn’t that easy. Also, some venues do not accommodate parties booked less than a month before the date.
The first thing to consider when choosing a venue is the logistics of your kid’s party. This means that before you get drowned with the number of options, you should have filtered them already based on the size of the party you are planning for your child.
Do you want to bring in food, drink, and cake? Will you need a kitchen or refrigeration? Or are you looking for a venue that will provide all the drinks? These are only some of the things that you should keep in mind.
But of course, you should consider your budget as well. After all, the venue might have the highest percentage of your total budget.
Lastly, when picking a venue, choose a location that is accessible to everyone who will attend the party.
All in all, here are the things that you have to find out:
- The time where you will be allowed to enter the venue for set up
- If you can come and pick up left items the next day or if there is a hard “out” time as part of your rental
- Know the parking capacity of the venue
- If they provide audio or visual equipment
- If the venue works with a list of preferred vendors
- Get the contact information of the venue’s manager
Arrange Entertainment
This is one of the most important parts of your kid’s party that you shouldn’t miss. Entertaining everyone at the party is not a piece of cake. So, the best thing to do is to prepare different things that everyone can enjoy doing, be it a kid or an adult.
For example, you can set up DIY personal pizza stations, art and crafts stations, etc. for the kids. You can also plan for games that both children and adults can play.
Check out these articles to have an idea:
Top 10 Entertaining Kid’s Party Indoor Games for Everyone to Enjoy
5 Cool Games Adults Can Enjoy at a Kid’s Birthday Party
12 Fun and Creative Craft Activities for your Kid’s Party
Make a Guest List
Most likely, you and your child know a lot of people. But it is impossible to invite all of them to your kid’s party. At one point or another, you will have to cut down on your guest list.
Knowing who to invite is very crucial and should be carefully done to avoid hurting someone. This can be quite daunting, so it would be best to sit down and take as much time as you need.
When making the guest list, start with your immediate family members. If your family is big, you might want to invite only the relatives you are really close with or the ones you interact with very often.
If your child has a lot of friends or playmates, it’s not necessary to invite all of them. You can just invite your child’s best or closest friends. To be sure, ask your child about this.
Order Supplies If You Are Making Your Own Decor
If you plan to make the decorations yourself, you should have everything you need ahead of time. Making decorations takes time, especially when you go for complicated designs.
Organizing the Order of Events: 1 Month Before
With all the major decisions carefully planned out already, all you have to do now is to work with the details.
Send Invitations
Sending invitations a month before the party is very important to give your guests ample time to get ready. With this, they can clear out their schedule, look for a gift, or hunt a costume or dress in case you want to assign a dress code.
As much as possible, do not send out invitations two weeks before the party, so you can give guests enough time to RSVP. This will also help you know how much food, chairs, and tables should you prepare.
Order Food and Beverages
If you are not hiring a chef, then as early as a month before your kid’s party, you might consider ordering non-perishable food items already. Doing so will give you enough time to figure out everything you need.
On the other hand, if your plan is to buy party trays, look if you can order ahead of time. In most cases, most restaurants only accept food trays ordered ahead of time, so they can prepare enough.
Hire a Chef
It’s understandable that everyone is not gifted with good cooking skills. You might want to cook for your guests, but sometimes hiring a chef is better, especially when you are busy with other things.
With your ever-growing hectic schedule as your kid’s party is coming nearer, it would be almost impossible for you to decide what to cook and if you should cook on the day of the party.
Even if it’s a kid’s party, people nowadays are aware and conscious beyond par about their health and what they eat. There might be some guests who have a strict diet, which can add up to your stress. And, working with a chef eases the tension.
Chefs know a lot of kid-friendly dishes too, so why not, right?
Purchase or Make Your Decor
Since you already have the supplies, it’s time to start making your own decors, if that’s what you want. You can always take inspiration from other people’s decors or you can design your own too.
If you are purchasing decors, do it now to ensure that they will arrive just in time for the party. For sure, you wouldn’t want to decorate the venue just an hour before the party just because the decors that you ordered have just arrived.
Look for Party Helpers or Hire Event Staff
Let’s be realistic. You can’t do everything alone, given the workload you have. You can’t be the server, the clean-up crew, and the host at the same time, which means that you have to ask for help from other people.
If your family lives near you, then you can ask them to help you. But if they are miles away, your best option is to look for party helpers or hire event staff.
Hiring event staff will ensure that setup and breakdown are cared for so that you can enjoy your event and mingle with your guests. On the day of your kid’s party, you won’t have to worry about a lot of things since someone is already assigned to do so.
Always remember that asking for help doesn’t make you less of a parent.
Organizing the Order of Events: 1 Week Before
Finalizing everything a week before will keep you away from unnecessary headaches the day before or of!
Since it’s only a week away from the party, here are some of the most important things to accomplish when organizing the order of events for your kid’s party:
Order Baked Goods
A kid’s party wouldn’t be complete without cakes and cupcakes. Pies and cookies are great food ideas that should be ordered at least one week before the party. This is because some bakeshops require more or fewer notices, depending on your preferences and their schedule.
When it comes to the details of the cake that you want, ensure to be clear about those. Give them a sample if you have one. And of course, do not forget to tell them the theme of the party.
If you have preferred flavors too, then you can ask if it’s possible for them to get those.
Follow Up on RSVPs
Even though you have sent out the invites a month before the party, some guests might forget to actually RSVP, which means that you have to follow them up if they can make it or not.
After that, make the final guest list and share it with your caterers, party helpers, or anyone else involved in the planning process to give them an idea of how many people will be at your kid’s party.
Arrange Party Favors
If you already have the supply, then the next thing to do is to prepare your party favors. Start putting them in individual bags that the kids can take home once the party is over.
As for the party favors, you can put something that the kids can actually use. For example, school supplies are far better than toys, but of course, giving out toys is totally okay. They are kids, after all.
Organizing the Order of Events: 1 Day Before
It’s almost your kid’s party, so keep going! Just a few more hours and you will already see how everything will turn out.
Here are the other things that you have to accomplish when organizing the order of events for your kid’s party:
Go Grocery Shopping
You might think that it’s too late to go grocery shopping, but it’s not—as long as you have listed everything you need to buy for the party.
Going grocery shopping a day before the party is ideal since some food items are perishable. You might not have enough space in your fridge to store them.
If you are busy, hiring a grocery delivery service is your option.
Pick Up Bakeshop Orders
Picking up the cake and cupcake a day before the party is the most reasonable thing to do, unless you want to do it last minute.
When picking up, it is understandable that you are in a hurry, given all the things that you have to accomplish, but do not forget to check out if the cakes and cupcakes are complete and look exactly how you wanted it to be.
Prepare Tip Envelopes for Party-Entertainers and Staff
This is actually optional but is highly encouraged as a way of saying thank you for all their help in making your child’s party successful. After all, they have greatly contributed to entertaining your guests and keeping the party as smooth as possible.
If you do not have any idea on how much you should give them, on average, children’s party entertainers receive around $15–$20. Of course, you can always give less or more.
Prepare Party Space
If you are having the party at home, then you should start preparing it a day before the party. This entails cleaning the whole house, especially the public areas such as the dining room, living room, and restrooms.
In as much as possible, keep away breakable and dangerous items such as vases, knives, chemicals, and the like to avoid any problem during the party. Remember, it’s a kid’s party, which means that there will be a lot of children playing around.
Prepare Non-Perishable Food Items
If you are not working with a chef, then you should start preparing the foods already. Specifically, you should start cutting meats and marinate them if needed, prepare the sauces, and cut the vegetables.
You can also start measuring food items to save time the next day. This will also help you be more organized while cooking because more or less, your kitchen will be very busy that day.
Make sure that your fridge has enough space to accommodate the food items that you are preparing. Also, a day before the party, food platters should be ready already.
Organizing the Order of Events: On the Day of the Party
So, your child’s big day has arrived. Everybody is busy, your child is excited. For sure, you are feeling a lot of emotions right now. But hey, relax! Everything will be alright.
Here are some of the things to do when organizing the order of events for your kid’s party:
Buy Ice
It makes sense that you should only buy ice on the day of the party itself. If you can’t do this, then you can ask someone to do it. Just make sure that they bring a cooler for the ice when they buy it.
Set Up Your event Decors and Centerpieces
If you rented a venue for your kid’s party, more often than not, you are only allowed to set up your event decors and centerpieces a few hours before the party. That is why having staff to help you with it is important.
Make sure that everything is in place and you have extra decors just in case some of them will be damaged. After decorating, inspect the whole place and check out if the details match how you envisioned it.
Clean Up After the Party is Over
If cleaning up is your responsibility too, then do it as soon as you can. If the venue allows you to do it the next day, then you can do it the next day since we all know that it has been a long and busy day for you already.
Better yet, leave this task to the staff and just supervise them. Do not exhaust yourself too much because you already have done more than enough.
What Items Are Needed for a Kid’s Party?
After organizing the order of events, list down everything that you will be needing for your kid’s party.
Most parties, regardless of the theme, will have the following items:
Birthday Cake
Imagine a birthday without a birthday cake? Sounds sad, right? That is why in as much as possible, you should never forget to get a cake for every party, not just for your kid’s party.
You can either have a store-bought cake or make one yourself. What matters is that your child has a cake at his party.
Speaking of cake, did you know that the Egyptians are the ones who invented it?
Entertainment Rentals
Sure enough, you can’t keep the guests entertained all at once, so hiring party entertainers is the solution.
You can have magicians, mascots, and performers. You can also rent bouncy castles, and karaoke machines if you want.
Party Favors
In almost all kid’s parties, children look forward to the party favors, so failing to distribute them will be heartbreaking.
Party favors don’t have to be grand. Instead, they should be more on the practical side, so school supplies are a good idea. But of course, if you want to treat the kids, toys are great too.
You can also incorporate the party favors in the activities. For example, you can have a DIY jewelry making station where kids will make their own jewelry and bring it home as a party favor.
Food and Beverage Party Supplies
What is a party without food? But what is food without a plate, spoon, and fork?
When hosting a party, do not forget to have enough supply of the different food and beverage supplies, including serving platters, cups, utensils, and the like.
Invitations
Of course, your guests wouldn’t know that you are hosting a party if you are not going to send them invites. You won’t know if they can make it or not as well if they don’t RSVP.
So, do not forget to add the distribution of the invites to your to-do list. Nowadays, you can send printed or digital invitations. It’s all up to you.
Balloons
As cliche as it may seem, balloons will never become underrated in a kid’s party. After all, they really make good decorations.
Just make sure to dispose of them properly. Also, do not forget to check out if you are living in a place wherein using balloons is prohibited.
Tables and Chairs
Obviously, you’ll need tables and chairs too. If you don’t have enough of these, there’s no need for you to buy, you can just rent.
You should have smaller tables and chairs for the kids and larger ones for adults. Also, make sure that there are enough tables and chairs for everyone attending your kid’s party.
Conclusion
Planning a kid’s party isn’t easy. In most cases, it is exhausting, that is why keeping a timeline of events is very much needed. With it, missing a detail rarely happens and everything is ensured that they are done correctly.
Related Questions
What do you need for a party checklist?
To know the things that you need on a party checklist, start with knowing what party you are going to throw and who your guests are.
If it’s just a small and intimate party, you may only need some drinks, snacks, and ice. But if you are hosting a large party, you will need decorations, photo backdrops, catering, staff, and likely a coat check.
What do I need to plan a party?
The most basic information you need to plan for a party is the guests and the location. After that, you should start planning the venue, entertainment, decorations, food, and beverages as well.
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