How much notice to give parents for a birthday party and other questions....

[fabulousmrbeagle]

Birthday party quandary,

Due to finances it's been left a bit late to sort out DS's birthday.
He is insistent (5) that he wants a big party like some of his friends have had and he wants it spider man themed. We have a tiny tiny house and no garden so doing anything at home or relying on the weather to do something outside isn't really an option. We don't want to let him down but me and my purse have our reservations.

We are are planning to hire a birthday venue and have an entertainer who can do both our dates. We have a choice of two dates (due to a family event being in the middle of the two dates). One is the weekend right after his birthday at the beginning of august and the other is about two weeks later. What with working parents, a weekend seemed sensible.

I'm looking for feedback from other parents as to whether you would find two weeks notice ok or would prefer a month's notice. I know I don't always have the time to go get a card or a present with short notice, and I'm more likely to have things planned that weekend. Is that generally the case?

On the other hand, would it be a bit weird to have a 'second birthday' almost two weeks later? Has anybody else done that?

Also, just out curiosity to check whether it's really worth paying the money for a party this time of year:
. would you normally avoid a summer party indoors (air conditioned building) on a hot day in the summer holidays?
. are you more likely to be on a holiday at this time?
. any other reasons attendance is likely to be low?

I guess at the end of the day it doesn't matter if there aren't lots of children, but I might feel a bit wounded if a lot of my mum friends don't show up. The fun of party planning, lol.

I'm wondering whether we should we just wait until he turns 6 or has the magic already worn off parties by that time (i.e mummy, daddy you didn't give me the spider man party of my dreams and I'll never be 5 again!)?

I don't know what we would do as an alternative though, maybe just take him and one friend out for the day and let him dress as spider man (and pay for their parents/siblings to come along.)?

People are more likely to forget with a months notice although it being the summer hols chances are it won't make a difference as people uaually plan their holidays more in advance than that.

Why not ring round a few mum friends and do a quick straw poll on who is free on each date?

2 weeks fine; keep it close to term time. By mid august all scheduling has gone to pot and there'll be no shows who wanted/forgot to come.

My DS's invites went out this week. His party is not until the end of August. I have had to send them out so soon as I do not have details for a lot of his pre-school friends. I have massively over-invited in the belief that many will be lost of forgotten as a result.

Ideally I would like 3 weeks notice.

Either is fine butmightwant to ask around his special friends for dates of availability first. If money is an issue you could do it yourself. We have done all our kids parties up to age of 6 by ourselves and the kids love it. We did a superhero theme party for ds 5th party and friend did a Spider-Man one for her sons. Happy to give you loads of ideas if you go along that route and it does work out much cheaper.