My Party Planning Steps

1. Pick a Theme
I have so many party themes on retainer at all time.. I'm a total loon. I have so many potentials for Beau, and future children all lined up and ready to go. I literally have a theme for a potential baby girl Strader third birthday READY to go. Haha! I'm crazy, I know! Sometimes picking a theme can be the hardest step.. for me, a lot of time things snowball after that.

2. Invitations + Other Inspirations
Then I'll move on to either contacting someone to design an invitation, or ordering something online. Either is a great option. I will say it was a splurge but I LOVED doing a custom watercolor invite for Beau's first birthday. It's such a keepsake for us. No matter what I end up doing, I usually look on etsy to get ideas of ways people have done invitations for similar themes to get in mind what I'd ideally like. I always plan to mail invitations a month out from the event, and usually end up mailing them a few days before that mark. While searching for invitation ideas, I'll also search for other inspiration photos for how I want to decorate or an atmosphere I want to create.

3. Food List
We have many incredible cooks in our family so I am always wanting to take advantage of having people make sweet treats. One of Ben's aunts makes INCREDIBLE sugar cookies and decorates them beautifully too! I like to have food semi correlate with the theme, but sometimes that doesn't work and you just have to choose some delicious things and go for it. For our "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" gender reveal, I wanted to do Southern foods, so our list included a biscuit bar, chicken and waffles, pimento cheese, red velvet cake, etc. For Beau's farmers market we had bbq and tons of fruit and veggies. My rule of thumb is to try and make ordinary things a little more special. For example, if you're doing grilled cheese and tomato soup, maybe try a few different fancy cheeses instead of just good old Kraft American Singles ;)

4. Sourcing + Shopping
If I'm planning with a group at this point we'll divide things, but for parties I'm hosting on my own, I try to start looking online for anything I'll need to order in advance.

5. Focal Point Planning
Often times with a party, I want to have a focal point area. Usually with some kind of banner, and things to make it special. For Beau's birthday, I had my brother in law build me a fruit stand, which I'll now adapt for other party themes in the future. For the gender reveal, my besties and I cut out a MILLION stars. This was before I purchased a cricut and we did everything by hand to save money instead of ordering on etsy. This part is always really fun and I plan on building our future home with a good place for a focal point in mind. Our old house had windows on all the dining room walls so we had to create a backdrop and it was a whole ordeal, haha!

6. Party Time!
Recruit helpers for setup, make sure you have an outfit that feels chic and effortless, and enjoy your guests. I've been guilty many times of focusing on setup and whatnot instead of enjoying my party. I've not eaten at many events I've hosted, which is silly. Learn from my mistakes. :)

What are some party planning tips y'all have picked up over the years? 

Linking up to Thoughts for Thursday! :)