I'm helping my sister and her friend plan a 1st birthday party, which is coming in a month. And I'm taking you along for the planning process. This week I'll show you the table setup.

I love their summer peach festival theme! It's for a little girl and the theme is a perfect compromise between a baby party and an adult party, which is what 1st birthday parties really are. It's sweet, fun, seasonal, and delicious.

I won't ever recommend decorating every inch of a venue because you can drive yourself crazy setting up, it's going to cost more than you'd like, and no one wants to clean that up afterwards. The best way to have a wow moment is to pick 1 area and pimp it out. The dessert table is the best place to do this. I like to focus energies on making a variety of cute desserts and drinks and adding unique (i.e. not factory-churned store-bought) touches to make it special and memorable.

Because I'm a super visual person, I need to have a literal picture of the dessert table for a few reasons. First, it helps me make sure I've considered everything in planning the table. For this party, I put a ton of stuff on the first board that we gathered on our pinterest page. What you see here is the second board, which has been adjusted after we saw the venue and discussed with the planning committee (hehe). Second, having a visual becomes our checklist days before the party. Third, it can be a guide for someone outside the planning committee to help with setup. I created this on Illustrator because I like everything on 1 page and it's the program with which I'm most comfortable. What can I say? I like efficiency.


Next week I'll show you the chalkboard signs I'm making. I'm pretty excited about them.

Have a great weekend!