For not wanting anyone at my sons birthday

No one could pay for 30+ people at a restaurant. Call me Bill Gates if I could

You are not being very creative , and you don’t need to be Bill Gates. Even for an adult party, most venues are very happy to work with you to develop platter options. You simply contact some venues, say ‘I’m having a celebration, there will be 30 odd people, individual meals are not an option, can you do maybe a few platters of pastas and some pizza’s to cover’. They say yes or no, and you ask them for a sample menu and pricing. Several loaves of garlic bread, a few large pasta platters and some pizza’s stretch out quite well among 30 people. Even adding in a few large simple garden salads on top is fairly cheap but depends on the crowd (for instance a group comprising mainly young men won’t generally touch them in my experience, whereas a women heavy group would be more up for salad and you could even swap out some of the pasta/pizza for big share garden salad bowls). Venues are often quite keen to do this for a very reasonable price if they think they are going to make their money with drinks instead😁.

ETA you probably spent as much on takeaway pizza and Chinese as you would have doing the above.

Heads up if you ever throw nursery or school parties - you are 100% expected to cater for 30+ people 😬 you didn’t need to buy them each a restaurant meal, most soft plays will do party packages or let you supply your own spread of buffet type food, I’d expect this is what people were expecting!

I'd do whatever you want on the day, and then tell people there’s tea and cake at yours between 2pm and 4pm/whenever convenient* so people can call round if you want. No catering, no hanging around, but an opportunity for people to pop in and buggar off. They know it's not a banquet, they can decline if they want to. Some balloons, birthday cake, quiet background music. This is what my SIL does and it's perfect - love my tiny nieces and nephews but they are small, they get tired, and we don't like to get in the way. Popping round for a cup of tea and to watch them attempt to open a present from us is enough when they're so small.

*lie, and tell people it finishes 30 minutes earlier than the actual final cut-off. That way you're not still welcoming stragglers at 5pm when you want to clear up and wind down.

Incidentally, I'd always assume I was paying for my own meal unless it's a wedding, my own birthday, someone has said they expressly want to take me out and treat me, I can actually see a buffet in front of me, or I've received a formal invitation by post. (Tbh, unless it's a wedding or there's clearly a buffet, I'd offer to pay my way anyway.) Your family sounds charming.

Realistically a 1st birthday is about the parents. The baby has no idea, and doesn't care. Why waste the money and time. Just have a nice day together and tell the family that you aren't having a party.

I think the point you’re missing is that yes - for a party you’ve spent ‘months’ planning you would usually be expected to provide a spread of food, and I’m surprised guests had to pay for their own soft play too. It doesn’t really sound like you planned a party at all! You say you didn’t sing happy birthday, did you bring a cake out to do so?

I don’t think the original event warrants as much upset and anger as you experienced as it doesn’t really sound like you planned anything at all - I would’ve definitely expected food at a ‘planned’ party, I’ve never been to one without!! But of course you can do your own thing this time, you don’t need anyone’s permission and it will be nice to celebrate as your family unit!

The point about DH not knowing his son’s birthday was so casually dropped in but I’d agree that is a bigger issue than random family members wanting McDonalds!

In all fairness I think it points to OP being left on her own to sort all things DC and may explain why she is getting a bit out of proportion on this. She definitely has a DH problem somewhere in the mix.

Agree with all this 100% .

How did this take months to plan? And how come your husband doesn’t know his own son’s birthday! That is really odd.

I throw the question back to you: would you expect your friends or family to pay for your meal at a birthday dinner for their son

Just to go round in complete circles. Yes, most people would expect this.

I have several kids. When they were little we had parties at soft play. At every single party we catered appropriate food platters for children and food platters for adults. As did everyone else I know where we were invited to their birthday parties at soft play.

Let’s branch out from soft play though. This has also been the case at every other child’s birthday party we have put on, no matter the venue or st home. Catered food for children and added some platters for the adults (which decrease as the children grow in age and they no longer have adults with them, so then you just need to account for any other family/adults that are there). This is very standard stuff.

Moving on to adult birthday parties. These ARE different to children’s parties in that catering is optional. However if you invite people it needs to be CLEARLY COMMUNICATED whether you are paying for the meals or they are paying for their own as part of the invitation. It could even be hybrid, in that you pay for meals but everyone pays for their own drinks, which is never a problem but MUST BE CLEARLY COMMUNICATED on the invite. It’s also situational, if you are inviting people to celebrate your child’s 21st or your 40th birthday and you put on the invite people are to pay for own meals there will be that understanding, but also a lot of chin scratching and muttering as that’s really unusual as landmark birthdays are traditionally catered. Non landmark birthdays, people wouldn’t think twice about the instruction that attendance means they pay for own meals, however it still all needs to be stated on the invite. This is all still applicable for non paper invites, such as social media invites.

Really weird that adults need such explanations.

You planned for months for a soft play, invited to a soft play for your kid's birthday and guests paid for the soft play themselves. What did you intend to pay as a host?

You keep missing the point, don’t you?

They also paid for their kids’ soft play?

Normally at a party, the host pays for the guests’ activity (soft play) and puts on food. At this soft play, if they let you bring your own and put it out on a table, I would have expected to see that, or something provided from the restaurant if own food wasn’t allowed by the venue.

If you’d invited the group to a party that would be the usual set up.

Not following this usual convention would cause confusion among guests. I do think that the later providing of two sorts of takeaway was a bit OTT; I would have said ‘I’m going to order six pizzas, any particular preferences?’ and left it at that.

This year, I would keep DS’s birthday just for your little family.

If there’s no party, nobody can be upset about not being invited. So DH doesn’t have to make it a big deal with his family because there’s nothing to ‘uninvite’ them from.

'my DH was forced to pay loads to order everyone meals. '

No, he chose to pay for them. No one put a knife to his throat.

I think the one with the hearing/reading problem is you. Loads of people have indicated what caused the problems at your daughter’s party, it’s up to you whether you want to accept it. Or you could of course die on your hill and continue to be bitter about it.

And to answer your original question, you will do everyone a huge favour if you don’t invite your relatives to celebrate your son’s birthday.

So you invited people for your child’s birthday but you didn’t provide any food either at the restaurant or at home? They ended up spending most of the day with you with no food? If I were one of your guests I would be thinking that is the weirdest, most tight-assed party I have ever been to. And you planned it for months? Next time when you decide to celebrate with guests, add some food planning to your list. This is one of those where I’d love to hear the other side’s version of events.

The expectation for a child's birthday is that catering will be provided by the host. That's one of the reasons most people don't go to restaurants - because it gets too expensive. You may not have known that previously, but hopefully you've realised that now.

Adult birthdays are a little different and usually seems to depend on whether it's a milestone birthday or not. For milestone birthdays, catering is provided. Often this means canapes or set meals, not everyone picking what they want.

Other occasions depends on the financial status of the hosts. In my 20s, I expected to pay my own way because no one could afford to pay for all their friends. As I got older, often food would be paid for by hosts but it would be something like pizzas or communal dishes and people would buy their own drinks. I think the key for adult birthdays is to be clear in advance what is being provided so people can decide whether they want the financial commitment of paying their own way.

It does sound like the previous birthday was a misunderstanding. The fact they haven't been supportive throughout this pregnancy/first year means I wouldn't be keen to invite them to a party, but you need to think about what you will do if they want to come over and drop presents. Make sure you don't end up having another gathering where multiple family members are coming over or they will think of it as a party and expect food.

I would never expect to be paid for in a restaurant for someone else's birthday. I don't think anyone I know would either. Bloody weird and entitled.

I shouldn’t call it a party. Family asked if they can come on the day to deliver presents and we all agreed to go to this restaurant/ soft play

You said you'd planned your eldests birthday for months. Now it's you shouldn't call it a party. What exactly did you spend months planning then?

Honestly op, you sound like a drama llama.

I don't think your guests realised you expected them to pay their own food. That's why they didn't order food.
Tbh no I wouldn't go to a restaurant and pay to celebrate your 1 yo birthday.
If you have been up front about the payment people can say no thanks.

We have never been invited to a 1 yo birthday where I was expected to pay for my family's meal. It can easily be an expensive day out for a family. I wouldn't realise it was the plan if not told upfront.

1 yo parties around us has been the birthday cake party at home.
They have been great. We have done these as well.