Large party at home in garden for 6th birthday - yay or nay?!

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DD wants to invite 25 kids to her birthday party 😬 And most of the kids will be 5 (she's one of the oldest in her class) so their parents will stay. Am I mad to contemplate hosting in our garden? We've done hall parties before and I'm kind of over them. Her birthday is early September and the weather is often good. I was thinking about borrowing or buying a large gazebo to protect from rain (or sun if it's very hot). We could hire a bouncy castle. My only real worry is that it's a lot of people who might want to use the loo!

Any advice welcome - from "don't do it" to practical tips about dos and don'ts. TIA!

I would do it but put on the invite. Welcome to drop and go.
I think at 5 and at school it’s quite normal to drop off.

DC1 is 9 now so it's been a few years, but in my experience "drop and go" doesn't happen quite yet. In reception year, parents always stay for the 5th birthday parties (we've had this all year). In Y1, it's a very gradual transition for 6th birthday parties. Later in the school year (when most children are already 6) there might be one or two parents who leave but only if the child has a familiar adult there (not the host!) who agrees to keep an eye on them. So if my DC has a close friend also attending, whose parent she is familiar with from play dates etc, then I'd leave her with friend's parent (and I've done it for DC's friends) but I wouldn't expect the party host to look after a 5/6 year old without their parent - not in addition to hosting the party. They can still be pretty clingy and demanding at that age. Theres no way on earth I'd want to be responsible for 25 kids of that age without any of their parents. And I know for a fact that some of DD's friends would be too anxious to enjoy the party without a parent there.

I did a graden party once and spent the whole week before stressfully checking the weather as i just couldnt have fitted all the children and parents in the house if it had rained. The children were nursery age and it would have been a nightmare 😀

Thankfully it didn't rain but I've not done one since.

Hmmm. I think I'll just go for the easy option of soft play. Not sure I can face the stress of hosting.

I’ll be a nay. It’s just an awful lot of hassle, the weather is so unpredictable, it takes a lot of organisation whereas with soft play or similar they just entertain themselves more or less.

DDs is in a couple of weeks and it’s great knowing literally everything is covered and taken care of. All I have to do is show up and pay for it!

Soft play is pretty expensive, there are options for exclusive hire but we'd really need to do it as a joint party, and there's only one classmate I know of with a birthday near DD's - but I've only met the mum once, briefly, at another birthday party.

I'll have to put my foot down with DD and make her reduce the guest list I think. We can do a soft play party if it's not exclusive hire and not more than 20 kids.

I just hate soft play so much but what the hell

Parents don’t have to stay with their yr 1s. And even if they did - is your toilet going to break or something?

I think if you do it you have to be ok with them all being all over the house ...

What’s the difference between hall party and home party, “over wise” ?

For that many I would be sticking with the hall, especially when you sat bouncy castle etc, that’s the hall surely?

We’ve done this for 4th and 5th birthdays, repeating for her 6th. End up with 20th kids (including some siblings to shock horror of MN), parents have stayed up until now, often both of them. We live in a small village, so it’s a bit of a social. Key imo is very very simple catering, first year I did pizza, salad bits and melon. Last year subbed the pizza for bbq hot dogs, that one of the other parents cooked to order. Ice lollys afterwards and cupcakes to send home rather than cake (just easier). Put on some beers, soft cans etc for adults and tell them to help themselves.
also, make sure you decide if the kids are allowed in the house or not. If you decide yes, I would suggest putting away toys like Lego.

I've done this twice, albeit not with quite that many. If you've got the space, it's quite nice. The parents were quite happy sitting in my garden. I did do some grown up nibbles as well, but these didn't get touched really. The next time I just did biscuits and offered tea and coffee, but you could probably do soft drinks as an alternative. Order the food in from Morrison's or Sainsbury's if you want to make life easier for yourself. Put some other kids toys out, like bubble wands, hula hoops, balls or whatever, as 25 of them won't stay on the bouncy castle the whole time.

I did it for my daughter's 6th birthday with half that number of children and it was hard work. I'm a primary teacher of pretty much that exact age group. There's no way more than about a third of your number will fit on the bouncy castle so what are the rest going to do? You just need a plan. I did extra activities like pass the parcel. Eating never takes as long as you hope it will. Oh, and I did it without parents. I find that much easier and it's easier to control behaviour but agree you'd not want to be responsible for 25 kids.

How much traipsing through the house does it take to get tother toilet? And do you have a second toilet?

And do you have climbing frame/swing set/something for the rest to be doing when not on the bouncy castle?

My daughter turned 5 in May. We invited 20 kids and as part of the invite I messaged the parents and said feel free to stay or go, and they all left the kids apart from 3 mums who are friends and helped us out. So much easier without all the extra adults and because the option to stay was there, it suited everyone. I asked for phone numbers just incase. But they were very happy just charging around. My advice would be not to over plan as they just wanted to play together without too much structure.

You need activities as well as the bouncy castle. The one that DC went to that didn't ended up a bit feral.

25 is too many. You'd need a marquee if it rained, not a gazebo. And you can't have 25 kids on a bouncy castle. So you would need other activities and someone monitoring the turns on the bouncy castle and making the kids get off when they'd had their 10 minutes. Too much hassle for me.

"Is your toilet going to break or something?"
Er no, but with about 50 people potentially needing the loo, some of whom are kids with poor bladder control, you don't see how it could be an issue?!
We have a downstairs loo which is fine but I wouldn't really want hordes of people going upstairs.
i think I've answered my own question tbh. But thanks for all the replies which have confirmed my suspicions. Far too much effort for a 6th birthday!
I'd like to do a garden party in future but not for DD's birthday, that way DH and I are in charge of the guest list and she's not being quite so demanding about who comes.

This sounds lovely and is good advice thank you

Do it! My sons birthday is early September and we had a good few years of garden parties with hired bouncy castle, and the weather never let us down.

There is no way in a million years I'd invite 25 x 5 yr old plus another 50 adults (and no doubt some weird families where they bring a 2nd adult, and then all those who drag siblings along) tp party in a garden.
What are you going to do when it rains ?
4 of us have birthdays between May and September, and there have been very, very few years where you could be sure it was going to be a nice dry day even a week before, let alone whenever you have to make the call about inviting people or not.
"A gazebo" would not house 50 odd people.
A gazebo is not rain proof. A light shower at best. Some guests at a party we were at 2 weeks ago found this out. Once the 'roof' gets wet then the rain starts coming through.
There is no way I'd want 50 people trying to navigate using one toilet between them at a party.

It is a really, really bad idea.
If she wants a party in the garden, she needs to choose 5 friends, you tell people it is drop off, and then you have flexibility to look after them in the house if it rains.
If she wants a mass party and you want to facilitate that you need to book some sort of venue.

or party in the park maybe, although I don’t really like them if I’m honest.

We do garden parties for DD2 every year as she’s a summer baby, but 25 is a huge number of kids. We don’t invite more than 12, which includes siblings as older siblings are all pals with DD1, as it just gets too hard to control (we do have parents stay too as we are friends so they stay and have food and chat too). It is my absolute favourite kind of party, they spend 3+ hours outside just having a blast. But 25 is a very different kettle of fish!

We’ve done this loads. We have a summer born and we’ve had loads of garden parties over the years. We usually have a bouncy castle and a picnic in the garden, the French doors to the play room are open and a few parents linger and lend a hand. We’ve usually had the party in the morning with a picnic lunch, cleared up and then laid on a barbecue in the evening for family and friends. Bloody loved it.

A friend of mine held a party in her large garden for the 6yo grand daughter. A huge success! She got the parents to organise activities/games, including the fathers! You could borrow or hire a trampoline? Tell the mothers it's an old style party and mothers could be asked to bring a food item. 😍

Oh please don't hire a trampoline. They're even more dangerous than a bouncy castle. And definitely don't ask mothers to bring food.