We celebrated my daughters first birthday at home, with just family. We felt she would not enjoy in a big party with too many people, most first birthday parties i have been to have involved the baby being cranky, crying, not happy at all, you get the picture :-)
This year, for her second birthday, we wanted to do the "big" party for her, and also wanted her to enjoy.
First issue was the venue.
We thought of some restaurant/hall, but due to consideration of her grandparents and the travelling time involved etc, we decided to do it in the clubhouse of our building.
Next was the "theme".
My daughter loves the humpty dumpty nursery rhyme, I thought of making the theme around it.
I checked with some decorators about it, but none of them had done this theme before, so they would have to design all the thermocol cut outs newly and since they wouldnt be able to reuse them, they would charge me more.
Also, since the rhyme involves a single character, it would be difficult to think of decorations around it.
I finally decided this theme can be done if i am doing it on a smaller scale at home, so i went with the next idea i had in mind, about doing a jungle animals theme, quite common, i know, but this is something my daughter would love too!
I somehow do not like the princess/cinderella themes, maybe if in future my daughter asks for it, will have to go with it!
We hired a decorator who would handle this decor, the games, music etc.
I bought her birthday dress quite in advance, i think its best to get all these things done earlier, which dont require a lot of thinking, later you need time to do all the other preparations, guest list, inviting them, cake, and the return gifts/party favors.
"Party favors"/"return Gifts"
The return gifts was something i spent like 2-3 weeks just thinking about it :-D
One weekend we went to the Ramsukh market in Raviwar peth, the market and the area around it is full of shops related to birthday parties!
Theres a shop inside the market, which sells stuff from rs. 2 to rs.300 per return gift, it was crowded and i was amazed at how many people were buying!
There were games and colours, lunch boxes and bottles, bags and pens, lots of stuff!
There were shops selling cut outs of all the usual characters like chhota bheem etc, there were stationery shops which had a good variety of paper bags, decoration material, i felt tempted to buy a lot of stuff :-D
I just wanted to check out the whole area and see if i find something interesting.
Personally, i dont like giving plastic stuff which is no use or will break in a day.
I was thinking of giving out some books or any toys which are also educational, like puzzles.
I also checked out all websites which sell such stuff, and mostly found the same stuff everywhere.
In my case, there would be kids from 1 year to 10 year old, and if i went for age specific gifts, it would be difficult to come up with the number of gifts required for each age range.
So i decided to go with something generic for all.
Goody bags filled with edible treats was a good option, its something kids of all ages will like :-)
i started looking for chocolates and wrapped packages etc and was also thinking of checking for cookies shaped like animals, it went hand-in-hand with my search for the perfect cake :-).
We went to all bakeries near our area, and unfortunately none of them said they did cookies with animal shapes, they didnt have animal shaped cookie cutters, i finally gave up on it and decided to go ahead only with chocolates.
"Birthday Cake"
As for the cake, i thought jungle theme is a pretty common theme, and i would just go to the cake shop, select the design and place the order and thats it, but i was in for a surprise.
All cake shops do jungle themes, with plastic animals placed on top of the cake.
Cream cannot be used to make them, you wouldnt be able to mould cream, also the shape wouldnt be attractive at all!
I did what i always do, and went to google, it opened up a new world to me, of fondant cakes :-)
Fondant makes beautiful cake designs, the cakes looked so amazing, thats when i decided i HAVE to go for fondant, and will not go with plastic animals.
I read a lot about fondant, and asked my friends on my different whatsap groups, i got a lot of inputs.
I decided i need fondant only for the animals, rest of the cake should be with fresh cream.
Fresh cream tastes better any day!
Now was the next challenge of finding a cake shop which does this, in my area, none of the cake shops did it! I went to a shop in koregaon park as well, they too didnt do fondant animals.
I went to fatima nagar where there are several cake shops and a couple of them showed me pictures of the cakes they did, and i was very happy i found what i wanted.
But none of them delivered to my area :-( i didnt want this last minute cake pick up on the day of the party, so i wanted home delivery.
I started googling again, i found a website kreativekakez.in, it also had a page on facebook, the pictures looked amazing, i called them and they said, they can deliver the cake but they will charge me for it.
i was fine with it, i am wondering why didnt the other shops offer me the same?!
But just calling up some number, without having any feedback/review was risky, what if the cake turned out to be a disaster?
I called them and asked them if i could come and taste, the lady is a home-baker, she doesn't have cakes ready, since she bakes only on order. I went to her home, tasted the samples and booked the cake.
"food"
I forgot writing about the caterer, we booked a caterer whose food we had tasted in a friends birthday party. A note about caterers, do taste the food before you book any caterer, its very important, after spending so much on the party, average food really spoils it all.The food was very good and the desserts, moong dal halwa and strawberry rabdi were yummy :-)
Overall the party was great :-) The cake looked amazing, the upper layer was chocolate, and lower one was pineapple flavor, the pineapple cake was awesome and soft, the chocolate cake not very soft, but the cake simply looked amazing, just like what i wanted!
Pictures of the cake and decor below:
This year, for her second birthday, we wanted to do the "big" party for her, and also wanted her to enjoy.
First issue was the venue.
We thought of some restaurant/hall, but due to consideration of her grandparents and the travelling time involved etc, we decided to do it in the clubhouse of our building.
Next was the "theme".
My daughter loves the humpty dumpty nursery rhyme, I thought of making the theme around it.
I checked with some decorators about it, but none of them had done this theme before, so they would have to design all the thermocol cut outs newly and since they wouldnt be able to reuse them, they would charge me more.
Also, since the rhyme involves a single character, it would be difficult to think of decorations around it.
I finally decided this theme can be done if i am doing it on a smaller scale at home, so i went with the next idea i had in mind, about doing a jungle animals theme, quite common, i know, but this is something my daughter would love too!
I somehow do not like the princess/cinderella themes, maybe if in future my daughter asks for it, will have to go with it!
We hired a decorator who would handle this decor, the games, music etc.
I bought her birthday dress quite in advance, i think its best to get all these things done earlier, which dont require a lot of thinking, later you need time to do all the other preparations, guest list, inviting them, cake, and the return gifts/party favors.
"Party favors"/"return Gifts"
The return gifts was something i spent like 2-3 weeks just thinking about it :-D
One weekend we went to the Ramsukh market in Raviwar peth, the market and the area around it is full of shops related to birthday parties!
Theres a shop inside the market, which sells stuff from rs. 2 to rs.300 per return gift, it was crowded and i was amazed at how many people were buying!
There were games and colours, lunch boxes and bottles, bags and pens, lots of stuff!
There were shops selling cut outs of all the usual characters like chhota bheem etc, there were stationery shops which had a good variety of paper bags, decoration material, i felt tempted to buy a lot of stuff :-D
I just wanted to check out the whole area and see if i find something interesting.
Personally, i dont like giving plastic stuff which is no use or will break in a day.
I was thinking of giving out some books or any toys which are also educational, like puzzles.
I also checked out all websites which sell such stuff, and mostly found the same stuff everywhere.
In my case, there would be kids from 1 year to 10 year old, and if i went for age specific gifts, it would be difficult to come up with the number of gifts required for each age range.
So i decided to go with something generic for all.
Goody bags filled with edible treats was a good option, its something kids of all ages will like :-)
i started looking for chocolates and wrapped packages etc and was also thinking of checking for cookies shaped like animals, it went hand-in-hand with my search for the perfect cake :-).
We went to all bakeries near our area, and unfortunately none of them said they did cookies with animal shapes, they didnt have animal shaped cookie cutters, i finally gave up on it and decided to go ahead only with chocolates.
"Birthday Cake"
As for the cake, i thought jungle theme is a pretty common theme, and i would just go to the cake shop, select the design and place the order and thats it, but i was in for a surprise.
All cake shops do jungle themes, with plastic animals placed on top of the cake.
Cream cannot be used to make them, you wouldnt be able to mould cream, also the shape wouldnt be attractive at all!
I did what i always do, and went to google, it opened up a new world to me, of fondant cakes :-)
Fondant makes beautiful cake designs, the cakes looked so amazing, thats when i decided i HAVE to go for fondant, and will not go with plastic animals.
I read a lot about fondant, and asked my friends on my different whatsap groups, i got a lot of inputs.
I decided i need fondant only for the animals, rest of the cake should be with fresh cream.
Fresh cream tastes better any day!
Now was the next challenge of finding a cake shop which does this, in my area, none of the cake shops did it! I went to a shop in koregaon park as well, they too didnt do fondant animals.
I went to fatima nagar where there are several cake shops and a couple of them showed me pictures of the cakes they did, and i was very happy i found what i wanted.
But none of them delivered to my area :-( i didnt want this last minute cake pick up on the day of the party, so i wanted home delivery.
I started googling again, i found a website kreativekakez.in, it also had a page on facebook, the pictures looked amazing, i called them and they said, they can deliver the cake but they will charge me for it.
i was fine with it, i am wondering why didnt the other shops offer me the same?!
But just calling up some number, without having any feedback/review was risky, what if the cake turned out to be a disaster?
I called them and asked them if i could come and taste, the lady is a home-baker, she doesn't have cakes ready, since she bakes only on order. I went to her home, tasted the samples and booked the cake.
"food"
I forgot writing about the caterer, we booked a caterer whose food we had tasted in a friends birthday party. A note about caterers, do taste the food before you book any caterer, its very important, after spending so much on the party, average food really spoils it all.The food was very good and the desserts, moong dal halwa and strawberry rabdi were yummy :-)
Overall the party was great :-) The cake looked amazing, the upper layer was chocolate, and lower one was pineapple flavor, the pineapple cake was awesome and soft, the chocolate cake not very soft, but the cake simply looked amazing, just like what i wanted!
Pictures of the cake and decor below:
