Wording and etiquette for birthday party invitations!

[Upyours2017]

My Dd is five soon and due to financial constraints I am planning to have a small birthday tea party for her at our house after school on the day of her birthday. Sounds simple so far, but I'm lost as to how to word the invitation! Do I spell out that it's a small tea party and so siblings aren't going to be catered for? Can I ask parents to drop off, or should I offer to pick them all up from school? (We live close to the school so can walk them home) or would it just be easier to have the party on a weekend instead? AND how do I handle not being able to invite the whole class? I would love to have had a bigger party but with a small house and not much spare cash it's not really possible this year. To avoid upset should invitations go in book bags? Any thoughts or advice or suggestions would be welcome!

Do you have their emails ? If do before giving the invites out, I'd send a chatty email

'DD has chosen to have a small tea party at home for her birthday and would love xxxxx to come. We don't have a lot of space so it will be a squeeze but you are very welcome to stay if xxxxx would like you to be there, please let me know in advance'.

I've noticed most parties now have an accompanying email or whatsapp message now as it makes it easy to reply.

Then send the actual invite, it would be a very dense person who would then think it was ok to come with an entourage. O

Not completely relevant to the small party thing but make sure the invitation has child's surname and how old they are going to be - I got an invitation from preschool for 'thomas' (not real name) with no age. There are at least 3 'thomases' at preschool and I had no idea which one it was for or whether they were turning 3 or 4..... as the party is at their house I would have no intention of taking younger sibling. Explanatory email would have been v helpful in this case! Could you put 'afternoon tea' as that sounds quite grown up so not suitable for younger ones?

Thanks both. I don't have parents details so will write a little explanation on the back of the invitation, ask them to drop their child off after school, and if they anyone can't do that then I'll offer to pick up from school. I really don't enjoy organising parties and am always relieved when they are over!