1st Bday Party Prep

When we first started planning for Papillon's Birthday, we didn't really anticipate it being a huge party. We wanted to invite "everyone", but we wanted to keep it simple and figured since it was the summer, a good number of people may be on vacation or what not, so what are the odds that nearly everyone we invited would be able to come!

Well, it turns out that we picked a good day, and as the RSVPs topped 50 people, we realized this party was going to take a significant amount of prep. (Side note: Thank you thank you to all the friends who took the time to come celebrate with us! We feel incredibly blessed to have so many awesome friends!)

So, the week before the party was filled with shopping.
A couple days before the party, I pulled out all of the dishes that feeding 50 people would require:

Then I made cakes. I am generally a cake-from-scratch kind of person. But, in light of the large quantity required I went with the boxed variety.

I then had a super-talented cake-decorating friend help me transform the cupcakes into Elephant and Piggie cupcakes (to go with our theme)

Aren't they the cutest?

We shopped the dollar store for some items that guests could use as dress up if they wanted (it was, after all, a fancy, costume, pool party!)

All these were stashed in a basket ready to be enjoyed.

For some reason, despite being a party-planner by trade, I had the hardest time trying to wrap my mind around how much food I would need for 50 people. I ended up airing on the side of tons of food...and we had lots of left overs. Which, is a good problem. But, next time I throw a 50 person party (which won't be for a while) I think I will be able to better estimate the correct amount of food. And so the party was prepped....ready for the guests!