Class birthday party - our extended family attending?

[SugarCookieMonster]

We’re doing a class party for DS next month at a soft play. There will be catered food for the kids and a little coffee area for parents.

The party is not on DS’s birthday so assumed we’d do the kids party then have a small family thing in the house on his actual birthday.

Now I’m second guessing and wonder if we should invite our families to the soft play. However, there would be about 9 of them if we limited to immediate family which would take up a lot of seating space. And none of them have kids so as a pre-child adult I probably would have hated such an invitation 😂. The DM’s would be eager to come but if we invited them, the rest would follow, so it’s an all or nobody situation.

I’m sure every party we’ve been to has had grandparents etc. Would it seem weird to the other parents if we had no family there?

It's not usual that extended family (especially childless adult family members) would attend a soft play party unless children family members are invited and they are a parent of those kids.

The norm ime is one small low key party/tea/meal out with family and a separate class party.

Surely family don't want to go to a soft play party? They're not exactly fun for the adults. Much better to have a separate family birthday tea.

Have them at a separate time. Your DS will want to play with his friends which means the family, who will have travelled over specially, will either not see as much of him as they might hope or see him afterwards when he is tired.

Unless the adults would be useful extra help for you, for example: if you have other children they could give their attention to whilst you are running the party, have them over another day.

My DM tends to come, mainly to keep an eye on birthday child's sibling, while I'm tied up with hosting and stuff for birthday child, or as an extra pair of hands at drop off parties. But a big group of extended family, that aren't directly helping, don't need to be there. Have a tea party at home some other time.

I always did separate.

Do them seperately. Your DC will want to play with their friends, any adult family would get ignored, or you / GM / whoever would be trying to get him to come out of the soft play to see Auntie Sandra and it'll be a pain in the arse.

Only family I've seen at class parties has either been parents of similar aged cousins or grandparents who are actively helping with setting out food or making teas etc.

Thank you for the replies!
You've put my mind at rest, I had pretty much decided to do them separately but had a momentary wobble. Can you tell this is the first (and preferably last) class party I’ve done?! 😂

Now I’m waiting for the texts from parents who missed the RSVP cut off. I’ve let them know I had to pay the venue but I have a feeling there will be a last minute flurry!