Safari Themed First Birthday Party!

Our sweet Bennett turned ONE, you guys! We threw her a safari themed birthday party on the most beautiful spring day! This birthday party was a labor of love (as you may know if you follow me on Instagram) – Lots of DIY projects, lots of planning, but it was all worth it in the end!

We/I wanted a clean, minimalist, safari party. The DIY table cloth (and pics I found on Pinterest, like this one) were my inspiration for the party. Looking at the pictures you might think “Oh, that doesn’t look like too much work.” I thought the same thing – Wrong! We threw the party a park – if we had the party at our house it would’ve been a heck of a lot easier. The park was close by but we still had to load everything into our cars and haul it to the park to setup (all while working around a one year old’s nap schedule). If the party had been at our house we could’ve casually setup all day inside or out. Something to consider if you’re throwing a party at a park.

All photos by the talented Kelsie Rorie Photography.

The morning of the party we put together the balloon garland. Balloons are an inexpensive way to make a major statement at a party! Brett built a stand out of pvc pipe we used to secure the garland so it sat over the high chair. He filled the bottom pipe with wet sand so it wouldn’t blow away in the Kansas wind. We spray painted the pipe gold to go with the theme. I purchased this garland strip to secure each balloon to the garland. We then secured the strip to the pipe using zip ties. This garland strip made it SO easy! You literally blow up the balloons and stick the tie in the holes. We made the balloons all different sizes to make it more interesting – We used a combination of colors, as well as these fun gold confetti filled balloons! I attached this ONE gold balloon to the top of the pipe to hang right above the birthday girl. I also purchased a set of these palm leaves to mix in with the balloons – Extremely inexpensive and super easy! I attached a few of the leaves to poster board so they stood up right and didn’t flap over.

The morning of the party I also made the food! Bennett has not had processed sugar just yet so I made this yummy Paleo banana coconut cake that not only looked great, it also tasted really good! This girl could eat bananas for every meal if we let her. For the party goes we served peanut butter cupcakes and King Hawaiian ham sandwiches (YUM)! I was able to prepare the sandwich the day before and just stuck them in the over about an hour before the party. They were a huge hit!

One final DIY – I made posters about Bennett to display at the party. They served as a great talking piece and also went well with the theme! One poster shared fun facts about Bennett, and the other showed her month-to-month pictures. I painted the leaves at the top and bottom of the poster using acrylic paints and wrote out the “facts” with sharpie.        

About 20 minutes before the party started our friend and uber talented photographer, Kelsie Rorie Photography, took pics! Word of advice for you party planners out there – Hire a photographer! I never worried for one second about taking pictures and it was SO NICE! Kelsie was there to capture it all (much better than I ever could’ve on my phone). The pictures truly are priceless! I will cherish them forever!Bennett loved her party! She was kind of timid with all eyes on her but we couldn’t have ask for better weather – Plus, all our family and friends made the trip so I consider it a win!

Links to all the products below! Thank you so much for stopping by, friends! Means the world! – Jamie