Does this sound o.k for a 7th birthday party with very mixed ages?

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, for my daughters 7th birthday I'm going to hire a room at a gorgeous little country pub/guest house. I'm having a traditional story teller/pupetier. I've seen him before and he's amazing! Really enjoyablefor adult too. (Well I enjoyed it) .
There will be 10 children there ranging from 6-13 years old and their parents, as it's family and close friends.

The first thing is, is it o.k to only cater for the children and maybe offer the adults a tea or coffee? Or should there be an adult buffet too? This would make the do far too expensive really, but would the adults expect it?

The other thing is, I'm booking the room from 3-5/6pm. The man only entertains for 1/ 1.5 hours. I'd planned to bring a load of our puppets in a box for the children to play with after. Do you think this would be o.k, or would they be board/ running riet?

Please be honest and tell me what you think.

Honestly? - at that age you need to have things for them to 'do'.... organised activities or games for the rest of the time.
Re the 'feeding the adults' - tricky, as I've never invited adults to a child's party (once they are of an age where they invite their friends). Generally, I'd say that you have invited only the children, so only need to cater for them - although offering a drink is nice, but if you are actually inviting parents and expecting them to sit at a children's party for 2-3 hours, then I'm inclined to think you ought to cater for them too. Sorry.

Why don't you just have the entertainer come to your house, and make it just for the children ? Keep it to 2 hours. About 20mins for the food, entertainer for 90mins, quick round of pass the parcel and you can stretch out any gaps with musical bumps / statues.

I don't think you need to cater for the adults - just invite them to tuck in when the kids have finished.
I do think the kids will need to let off steam (well the younger ones) after the puppet/story bit.
Balloons,pass the parcel and musical chairs will sort the rest,and the big kids will hopefully love looking out for the little kids...
If it isn't a letting off steam sort of a place,would anyone help with a craft table/face painting/nail painting/tattoo table maybe?
It sounds lovely!

Thank you both. The adults are mostly family members who want to come to the party. We have a big family and the 3 others are very close friends who would want to be there too.
Our house is too small for everyone.

I'll have a think about activities after the entertainer has left. The children all get on really well together and are all well behaved, so it should be good. (Fingers crossed)