We're holding a 1st birthday party for DS soon. We've managed to borrow a gorgeous garden for free and the idea is that it's a sort of DS welcome party, bit like a christening, but less formal and without the religious bit. So far we're planning cake, baloons, a cold veggie buffet we'll do ourselves and no booze.
The guests range from my family (white, rural, posh) to DP's family (Asian, urban, not posh) and our friends who are about as diverse a bunch as you could imagine, but including largish Muslim, Rastafarian and Pagan contingents. About 70-100 people including about a 10-20 children.
Few of the guests will have met one another before, and I can see it being a bit of a challenge breaking the ice. I didn't want to just have games for kids (although I'll do a couple) as most of the guests are adults, but rather games that everyone could join in to help break down some of the awkwardness and put everyone at ease.
There's quite a bit of square, flat lawn and smaller paved areas with the rest of it being paths through trees and flower beds. We don't have much money, so we won't be able to hire bouncy castles. I'd love some suggestions for games/activities that aren't too difficult to draw people into.