Planning the perfect children’s birthday party made easy

You want your child’s birthday to go off without a hitch. You want them to be able to celebrate with their friends, have fun and create countless core memories.

Organising a child’s party can be stressful. That’s why many parents opt for tailor-made packages from local party venues and suppliers.

To make your next children’s birthday party much easier to manage, we’ve created a simple birthday party checklist for you to download and use. We hope that you find it useful to reduce your stress levels and make the party-planning process much easier.

Step One – what does your child want from their party?

Timescale: 2-3 months before

Like most birthday parties, you need to have a clear outline of how much money you want to spend. Children’s birthday parties can be extremely expensive, often running into hundreds of pounds – and that’s just for a party at a local leisure centre!

Setting a budget isn’t just about the price per head for each guest. It’s also about how much you want to spend on food and drink, decorations, party bags and even the birthday cake.

When you have your budget sorted, you can start to think about the date/time of your party. Think about what suits you and your family, but also what suits the guests. If you know that your child’s best friend has a swimming lesson or football game on a Saturday afternoon, try scheduling your party for the morning or the next day.

There’s no right or wrong answers when it comes to whether you should invite the whole class or just a few select friends. Your choice will often be dictated by your type of party, venue restrictions and the age of your child.

Typically, you can expect whole-class parties to take place in pre-school, reception and year one, before transitioning to smaller friend groups after that.

With a budget, date and idea of guest lists, it’s time to think about your child’s birthday party venue. The opportunities are endless – you could host at home, in a local park, book a known party venue (such as a leisure centre or soft play), invite friends to an activity centre (perhaps swimming or tobogganing), visit the cinema, go to the zoo and much more.

Step two – Invitations and party theme

Timescale: 1-2 months before

You may find that your party venue supplies you with invitations and theming. If so, that will certainly make your life easier.

Your party theme (if you are having one) will almost certainly be based on your child’s personal likes. Pinterest, Insta and TikTok are all great places to search for inspiration. Popular themes might include football, superheroes, princesses, unicorns and animals. If your child chooses a popular theme, you’ll find it much easier to source decorations from supermarkets or budget stores like The Range and B&M.

If you want something a little more unique, why not search for options and inspiration on Etsy? We’ve seen great examples such as Taylor Swift birthdays, Stranger Things, and even Bluey!

Ideally, you want to send out your invitations 4-6 weeks in advance (make sure you confirm the final RSVP deadlines with your venue). Within the invitation you need to include the following information.

– Birthday child’s name

– Guest name

– Venue

– Date

– Time (starting time and collection time)

– RSVP deadline

– Your contact details

– Allergy/dietary requirements

You will likely hand out a paper invitation for your child to pass onto their friends. Make sure you take a photo of the invite (with all the relevant information) and we recommend WhatsApp-ing the details to any parents as an additional check.

You’d be surprised how many invitations get lost at the bottom of book bags!

Don’t be afraid to make it clear on the invitation whether siblings are welcome or not. It’s perfectly acceptable to say that only invited children can attend, especially if you are in a small venue or have restrictions on numbers.

Step three – Gathering the party supplies 

Timescale: 1-3 months before

If you’ve booked a party at a known party venue, you might not have to do this at all. The venue themselves will have everything they need.

However, if you’re hosting a party at home, the local supermarkets, Poundland, B&M, The Range and Amazon all have great, low-cost party supplies. Those stories will be the best place to pick up tableware, balloons, banners, party bags etc.

The birthday cake will likely be the centre piece of your decorations.

If you’re working with a local baker to make the cake, you’ll almost certainly need to give 2-3 months’ notice to book the date in their diary. Of course, you could bake the cake yourself or choose a delicious shop-bought option. You could even choose a blank iced cake (often available from Asda or M&S) and decorate it yourself, matching your party theme.

If you are baking it yourself and are relying on somewhere like Etsy for bespoke iced decorations or shaped cutters, you will need to give at least 6-8 weeks timeframe for the items to arrive.

In our experience, costs can become out of control when it comes to party bags. You might be tempted to head for cheap toys and filler items within the bag, but those costs are often more expensive than you might think, particularly with whole class parties.

Why not think about the environment and choose something a little more sustainable? We like the idea of giving away homemade brownie kits, or selecting an painted suncatcher and encouraging the kids to paint their own party bag favour.

Another idea is to use a natural cotton shopping bag as the party bag itself. You could either provide your guests with fabric pens/paints to decorate it themselves, or if you know someone with a Circuit machine, each bag could be personalised with the guest’s name. Not only will the bag be used for years to come, but a named bag always comes in handy for groups and activities with schools!

Step four – the entertainment

Timescale: 4-6 weeks before

Keeping a group of children entertained is no easy task, but if you’re hosting a party at home, there are many options available for party entertainment.

You can easily hire bouncy castles, magicians, princess/superhero impersonators or face painters to visit your party. Typically, prices will be between £60-150 depending on what you are booking and how long they will be there. You could even choose to hire a hot tub and host your very own, at-home swimming party!

We recommend asking parents on the school group chat for their recommendations of reliable entertainers. You should also clarify any cancellation policies with any external suppliers before you book.

Traditional party games such as musical statues, pass the parcel, pin the tail on the donkey, piñatas and limbo also remain popular. Another easy game to play is Donut on a String, encouraging guests to eat a ring donut without using their hands.

Step five – Arranging food and drinks 

Timescale: 2-3 weeks before

If you have booked a party at a local children’s birthday party venue, you may find that food and drink are included within your price. That will make your life much easier – but it’s still important to check with any parents if there are any allergies or dietary requirements that you need to cater for.

Common dietary choices such as vegetarianism or veganism are relatively easy to cater for, and venue will all have ready-made options available. You will still need to check if there are any nut, or dairy or gluten allergies and let your venue know as soon as possible.

If you’re hosting at home, you may need to be more cautious about cross contamination. If there is a serious allergy, make sure you speak to the child’s parents and ask them what they need.

Typical party food choices are relatively easy to prepare.

Vegetable crudités (carrots, cucumber, pepper) are always popular, as are apple slices/orange segments. You can add sandwiches, pizza slices, nuggets and crisps to the table, allowing guests to help themselves. If parents are staying, you may need to think about adding in some additional food for the grown-ups! Teas and Coffees will certainly go down a treat!

An easy tip – many of the big supermarkets offer food-to-order sandwich platters that will take your stress away. Morrisons offer sandwich platters from as little as £10.

Alternatively, why not hire a local caterer to manage your menu? It’s not just about hiring a private chef – you might be surprised to realise that your local bakery can easily cater for birthday parties at low cost.

Step six – the logistics

Timescales: 1-2 weeks before

As the party date approaches, make sure that you’ve reconfirmed all of the details with any external suppliers or party venues.

If you’ve booked a cake from a local baker, or you have ordered sandwich platters from the supermarket, think about when you need to arrange pick up. Most will need to be collected on the day, so you may need to factor in time in the morning to go and pick up any last-minute goods.

You also want to reconfirm with your venue what time you can arrive – as the party host, you want to be there at least 30 minutes before your guests arrive so you have time to set up.

As part of your planning, try and write down a brief outline of your party – you want to be clear on when guests will arrive, when the entertainment will take place, when food will be ready and the cake cutting.

Step seven – post party

Timescale: On the day

When party day arrives, the whole event will pass by in a flash.

We recommend that there are two key things you need to take with you to your party.

Bin bags to store away any rubbish. If your pre-organised party is arranging the clean up for you, the bin bags may come in handy to transport any birthday presents to your car.

Also, don’t forget to pack a pen and notepad. This will allow you to keep track of who has given what gift if the birthday child opens any presents in front of their guests. Having a list makes it easier to arrange a thank you card.

Inspired Occasions can help plan the perfect birthday party

Whether it’s your child’s first birthday or their 18^th, we are here to help.

Our expertise can minimise your stress levels and help you plan the perfect birthday party. We can provide planning support months in advance, or we can transform those last-minute parties with just a few weeks’ notice.

As a birthday party planning company, we know how to get the most value for your money. We can use our network of contacts to bring in external suppliers, negotiate budgets and handle the logistics so you don’t have to!

All you need to do is get in touch!

Alternatively, if you need any inspiration, why not head over to our Instagram or Facebook page.