Help with invitations and planning for my daughter's third birthday party

[newmumcrazytired]

My daughter is turning three in August. I have booked a stay & play garden for her party.

Do you know any free invitations that are good to use online as I’ll mostly WhatsApp them?
When should I send the invites out?
What info goes on the invites? Is it just time and place?
The venue are doing party food so I will need to ask about dietary requirements and allergies but maybe in the text I send out with the invite?

Also, any good and cheap birthday cake recommendations?

I’m sorry for all the questions! I’m a bit clueless as we’ve only been invited to a couple of first birthday parties a long time ago. Any help is greatly appreciated from people more experienced with children’s birthday parties! Thank you 😊

Making and decorating a cake to your child’s specifications is a parenting rite of passage!!! Think dinosaur swimming pool farm train have to say Pride Rock was a bit of a challenge!

Cake - if you're not a baker then supermarket cakes are decent. You don't need to pay hundreds for someone to make a massive fancy one. Either get a plain one and decorate it or just have a look at what she might like.

Invitations. I'd just sned a wattsapp in a group with all the details. Time, address, ask for any dietary requirements. The. If people say no you can jsit delete them.

Thank you, both! That is really helpful. I think I’ve been overthinking the whole thing!

Sadly, I am no baker but perhaps this is my chance…!!

I just WhatsApp the details and keep a note of replies, allergies etc.

Be clear on whether siblings can tag along or not, whether there's a cost for them.

I'd get a supermarket cake or cupcakes, I'll be honest I bin homemade cake unless it's someone I know well and trust their hygiene standards.

I made my last party invitation on ChatGPT - I told it the occasion, date, start and end time, location, RSVP details, and gave it a 'theme' for the invitation. It was a masterpiece! Then whatsapped the image to the invited people. As they confirmed by text, then I asked if they had any dietary requirements.

If you’ve got a decent number of kids and adults, you can’t go wrong with a Costco cake. Much sneered at on MN but an absolute staple of kids parties here. Cheap, huge, and for my sins, I bloody love every chemical mouthful. Just ordered one for my own DD’s birthday next month.

And I use Canva for invitations. They look really nice.

Canva have loads of free invite templates. Just search a theme & the edit the details. You save it & then can WhatsApp it.

People need to know, x is turning 3 and would like to invite y to join her at..... on the ... between 2-4. Rsvo vy x date and please let me know of any dietary requirements. X looks forward to celebrating with y. Buy a cake from a supermarket or try a big single layer homemade cake covered in chocolate icing and then buttons or sweets. Do not over think it!

If you want a cheat cake, buy a bog standard choc cake, box of Betty crockers choc fudge icing, some chocolate fingers, jelly tots and a rubble toy. Cut whole in cake, cover with icing, put choc fingers around then put jelly tots in hole and rubble toy on top so that hes digging in mud! Really easy but kids approved! And you get to keep the toy!

Party bags, i hate all the plastic crap, I go on the sale at Rex International. One year I got little metal buckets and put cake in that, one year lunch boxes, this year I got little bento boxes for £2 each.

Thank you so much for all the really helpful replies. Hadn’t thought of asking Chat GPT to make my invites so will do that! Great cake ideas from everyone too. Hadn’t clocked that I’ll need to do party bags too so thanks so much for the advice on those!

Op I was slightly joking about making a cake but it is actually quite fun to make a basic sponge then decorate it with various bits and pieces and your child will be very impressed it doesn’t have to look at all polished- I made a house cake once which began to collapse so I used chocolate flakes as buttresses. But don’t make it a chore if you don’t fancy it.

Try and keep it simple. Another fan of Canva here - it provides a template so you can just amend as needed.

Cake - we bought a small plain cake from Sainsbury’s and put superhero decs from Amazon on but also bought a big tray bake cake with sprinkles on that I cut and wrapped up the morning of the party so I didn’t have to faff cutting the cake during.

Party bags - some sort of sweets, stickers, a bouncy ball and bubbles then add the cake.
And based on a recent party we went to, please please please don’t put in anything noisy (looking at the parent who provided plastic whistles 😡)

Random other bits - have a table for presents to be put on and take big shopping bags to put them in to get home.
Make sure there’s enough seats for parents - and if you can, provide something for them to drink if they can’t buy while there.
Relax - the kids are 3, they don’t care as long as they can eat and run around.

ChatGPT all the way! It can make you a nice invitation if you wanted that rather than just a text.

Thomas the tank engine!

I buy the invites off Etsy for about £3 in a chosen theme and then edit the writing. There are free templates on canva too. The chat GPT ones look awful.

Time, place, RSVP deadline, ‘please let me know of any dietary requirements’ on the invites, send out about 4 weeks before.

If on a budget supermarket cake, or donut or brownie stack with a personalised topper from Etsy/ similar.

Colin the caterpillar cake M&S

Invites with the info on and asking them to rsvp by x date - we got nursery to put them in their bags to take home. Then when they rsvp you can double check dietary stuff.

We’ve done big parties for age 2, 3 and soon to be 5 and he also has an August birthday which I do think makes things more difficult as a lot of families are busy/on holidays!

For every party he’s had, invites have gone out quite far in advance as it always needed to be sorted out before his toddler/pre-school classes finished for summer! Now he’s at nursery (we didn’t do a big party last year) and I’ve already invited people. So far I’ve invited 17 children (9 from nursery and 8 not from nursery) and I’ve had 8 yesses, 3 no’s and I’m still waiting to hear back from the rest but it should be okay as I had to pay for 10 children and then I can add on any extras and pay for them up to a week before the party up to 20 😊

I made the invitations on canva and I’ll either get a supermarket character cake or make a cake on the ASDA design a cake machine for the party.

I don’t have to worry about food or party bags this year as we’re having the party at LUSH and they don’t allow food (we’re going to go to McDonald’s before the party and if anyone wants to join us they can) and LUSH gives everyone a bag with a free LUSH product (they’re getting castle jellies) and they all also get to take home the bath bombs they’ll be making at the party 😊 They will also cut the cake and give it out 🥰