Village hall, invited the whole class (school nursery) plus a few other friends and cousins.
Hall cost about £80 for 3 hours plus 30 mins either side for set up/ clean, use of kitchen. We made the party 2.5 hours though to give us a bit of leeway.
Hired an entertainer (Disney princess who sang and danced and did games) for 1 hour of that - £100
Got a cake made by a local baker another £100
Did the food ourselves - was easiest to make it all vegetarian. I did pizzas (including a couple of vegan ones for those who needed that), hummus and veggie sticks, crisps, fruit platters, some quorn sausage rolls, party rings, crispy cakes. Spent about another £100. Didn’t do sandwiches after watching piles of then be thrown away at previous parties. Tea/ coffee/ soft drink/ biscuits for the parents. MIL bought tons of fruit shoots and printed out themed labels to wrap round them - was very cute but a total faff and not something I could be bothered with, I’d have just done jugs of squash, but MIL was happy to do it and it did go down well.
Bought a load of balloons, streamers etc in keeping with the colours of the character theme, we also have a load of fabric bunting MIL made for previous events that we hung everywhere.
Printed a load of colouring sheets. Bought cardboard crowns and superhero masks, MIL brought along piles of gems and stickers etc to decorate these - she has piles of things like this as she makes cards. Used all of this to set up a craft table.
Bought a load of temporary tattoos which my friend and niece set up as a little tattoo station.
Used some speakers and disco lights we already had.
Was just enough time, they all ended up covered in tattoos and enjoyed making a crown or mask or both, ran around with balloons and helped themselves to food. The princess broke it up nicely and went down well with both boys and girls which I’d been a bit worried about - was ok for this age group anyway.
Did old school bags of tat for party bags - my DD absolutely loves the tat to be honest, it’s the best part of the party for her, and I know a lot of her friends are the same. I think they all got some bubbles, a bouncy ball, a few sweets, a few tattoos, couple of stickers, mini pencil and a piece of cake.
We did do a pass the parcel to fill the time once princess had finished and cake was being cut - wouldn’t bother with that again was a complete pain in the arse to prepare and I’d done it for the number of kids who rsvpd yes but then you had last minute drop outs and additions and it just ended up going really awry! DD had specifically asked for it but never again, unless it was a really small group.
Otherwise it was lovely and I was really happy with how it went, most importantly DD had an absolute ball.
I do think the ones with bouncy castles always go down really well too - DD was set on the princess though and we couldn’t afford both.
This year I was planning something smaller/ less work like X number of friends at soft play or similar, but we’ve also been asked if we want to do a joint party with her best friend whose birthday is very close, not sure what to do now.