What Parents Really Want From A First Birthday
A first birthday is the one party where the guest of honour will not remember a single minute of it. The photographs do the remembering instead, and they get looked at for years afterwards. Grandparents frame them. They end up in the album, on the wall and in the slideshow somebody plays at the eighteenth. That is why we treat a first birthday as a photography job as much as a decorating one.
The useful question is where people will be standing when they lift the camera. Decoration spread thinly around a whole room photographs as clutter. One corner built properly gives you a background that works for every picture taken that afternoon, including the ones taken on a phone by somebody who is also holding a baby.
Most of the first birthday decorations we install in Bedford and the villages around it go into a home, a village hall or a small function room, and the parents have a short window to get everything in before the guests arrive. We deliver, install and come back later to take it all down, so the setting up is not a job you have to think about on the morning.
Start With A Light Up Number One
Light up number 1 hire is one of the pieces we are asked for most often for a first birthday, and there is a sound reason for it. A tall illuminated 1 gives the photograph a subject. It reads instantly, it tells anyone looking whose party it was, and it holds its shape in the background of every shot whether the room is bright or the curtains are drawn.
A light up number is deliberately plain, which is what makes it useful. It sits inside any colour scheme without fighting it, and all of the colour in the finished corner comes from the balloons and the backdrop you put around it. Light up number and letter hire also covers the name of the child if you would rather spell that out alongside the age.
On its own, a light up 1 is a hire item standing on a floor. Built into a garland, with a backdrop behind it and a cake table beside it, it becomes the corner everybody queues at. That combination is a common first birthday booking for us and it is the one we would suggest first.
Build An Organic Garland Around It
An organic garland is the run of balloons in mixed sizes that sweeps around the number, over a doorway or across the top of a backdrop. The uneven sizing is what makes it look grown rather than assembled, and it photographs far better than an even row of identical balloons ever does.
For a first birthday we usually keep the palette to three or four colours and let one of them carry the weight. Sage, ivory and gold is a quiet choice that suits a daytime party and does not argue with whatever colour the room is already painted. Blush with pearl and chrome is another easy choice and it photographs warmly under a hall light. A pastel mix works when there is no theme at all and you simply want the photographs to look bright.
Inside the run we can work in eucalyptus and dried florals, foil shapes such as stars or clouds, and a character cutout if there is one. Balloon arches and garlands are what tie the rest of the corner together, so if you are hiring a wall or a backdrop as well it is worth having the garland worked across both so the whole thing reads as one piece.
Backdrops, Cake Tables And Table Decor
A backdrop is what stops the photograph showing somebody's radiator. A sequin wall catches whatever light is in the room and gives you a background with movement in it, which suits an afternoon party in a hall with flat lighting. A flower and greenery wall is softer and it works well in the close photographs, the ones where the baby is held up in front of it.
The cake table gets photographed nearly as much as the number itself. Event linen hire covers the table properly to the floor so you are not looking at folding legs, and table decor keeps the surface tidy so the cake is the thing your eye lands on. A few weighted balloons at either end frame the table without crowding the cake itself.
Personalised bubble balloons are worth adding at the table. They are printed with the name and the age, on a clear bubble or on a solid colour, and they give you the one photograph that could only have been taken at this party. They also go home afterwards and last a good while, which parents tend to like.
Themes That Work At One Year Old
A one year old has no opinion on the theme, so the theme is really a decision about colour and about what the family will enjoy looking at later. The ones that work best are gentle, easy to read in a photograph and not so busy that the child disappears into them.
Safari animals are a popular first birthday theme. Soft greens and sand colours, a giraffe or an elephant standing beside the number, and a garland that behaves like foliage. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is another reliable choice, partly because the colours are strong and partly because almost every family already owns the book. Themed character displays bring the character in as part of the decor rather than as a printed poster taped to a wall.
Teddy bears, clouds and a plain pastel scheme with no character at all work well too. If there are twins, two number ones with a single garland running across both and a pair of matching backdrops gives each child their own half of the photograph. Pick the theme before you pick the colours, because the colours are the easier of the two to change.
Soft Play, Event Staff And Delivery
Most of the children at a first birthday are too young for games, and an empty hall with nothing in it for them goes wrong quickly. Soft play hire takes care of that part of the afternoon. Soft shapes, a small slide, a ball pit and a mat, laid out in their own area so the babies have somewhere to be while the adults talk. It also keeps small hands away from the display, which is worth more than it sounds.
Event staff can take on the parts of the afternoon you would rather not be managing yourself, serving, clearing as the party goes and keeping an eye on the room so you can be in the photographs instead of behind the camera. Event prop hire covers the pieces that are hard to borrow, the plinths, frames and stands that hold the number, the cake or the favours.
We cover Bedford and Kempston, Milton Keynes, St Neots, Luton and Hitchin, along with Ampthill, Biggleswade, Sandy, Flitwick, Cranfield, Shefford, Stotfold, Wootton and Bromham. Everything is delivered, installed and collected again afterwards. If you want helium balloons on the day itself, The Balloon Shop counter at 210 Bedford Rd in Kempston has them ready to carry out, and the shop line is 01234 604298. For a full first birthday display, the events line is 07584 653282 and the email is hello@eventartistry.co.uk.
What this is about
