2 or 3 birthday parties or invite 30 kids?!

[Hellotodays]

Son is tuning 7, he has a quite new group of nice kids in his class after reshuffle (about 10), about 8 good friends from his football (some overlap with class), plus a couple of friends from his old class and from other activities, they all know each other at least a bit.
Another kid in his class has a birthday the same week, but the mum has said she doesn't want to do a joint class party.
I feel all my sons friends altogether will be chaos. But I feel restricting the number of guests at this age will be forcing him to choose a path and end up with people feeling excluding or damaging those budding friendships.
Had the idea to do a pizza after football practice for them, then a class party at home, but the guest list for that will obviously be the same as for the other kids party. Plus it seems like a lot and would we need two cakes etc, and also if the pizza is not a full party it would get a bit awkward if people wanted to give presents etc, and we wouldnt want to pay for all the parents pizzas too. And also where do we fit in all the other friends - the ones from his class last year, his other extra curriculars and his cousins.
It all seems a bit crazy. Last year was a bit of a disaster with his two best friends (no longer) falling out with him and him falling over and having to get stitches, so I really want to make this year nice. Help!

You are massively over thinking this OP.

What does your son want to do and with who?

Just invite the ones he wants from school, book a trampoline park party, buy a cake and sit back.

Ask your son what he wants to do? I would likely try and pick and activity like trampolining and ask him to pick however many you think you can cope with or just do a hall party invite everyone and that's it.

Find a venue that can take everyone and book a really awkward time like 5pm on a sunday evening, send the invites out with a rsvp date.
That should sort it out.😁
Multiple parties for different groups is huge work.
One and done!

or do a hall party, invite everyone, hire a bouncy castle if that's something your son would like, get a 3-4 pinatas, they can take some time to bash and my son, just turned 8 loves them. Making pinatas is actually really easy, just keep a few cardboard boxes from deliveries and either draw or print out a picture and stick with glue, add some crepe paper round the edges, fill with sweets, get some sturdy broom handles, get the kids to queue up, and they all get a go to have a bash.

I think several different parties will be a lot more work than 1 hall party. Buy in takeaway pizza, or if the hall has a kitchen buy it from a supermarket and reheat there. In theory a cold buffet is easier, but I've found chicken nuggets, pizza, chips, veg sticks, fruit and biscuits cover most allergies and dietary requirements if you are careful in what you buy from the supermarket

Have one party and invite everyone. Rent a hall, don't do it at home! Get some entertainment in. Not everyone will come. Enjoy.

I hired a hall, a disco man that provide on all the disco games - limbo, statues etc.. and hired a bouncy castle too. Got party food spread delivered. Invited 30 children and they all had a fantastic time with little effort from me once it got started. I just manned the bouncy castle, helped them all when sitting down to eat and brought out the cake.

The disco man handled the rest.

It cost £500 (including party bags) but this was 13 years ago.