Party Bag Etiquette?

[NatalieH2220]

Hi all. Need some help please, my sons birthday party is booked at soft play for 12 people. He's turning 5 so his first proper party.

I know some of his friends have siblings. One has asked if they can bring them along too but no one else has mentioned.

It would be easy enough for them to bring siblings along and just pay separate entrance and I've ordered additional food in case.

Party bags however. Would you make spares to give to siblings too? Do I just give to those invited? I don't really want to buy a load of extra stuff that might not be needed but don't want to upset anyone either. Are there any unwritten rules here that I need to be aware of?

Only invitees get a party bag of course. But it doesn't hurt to have an extra few Haribo bags on you for little siblings to appease tears and tiredness.

Well, party guests get goody bags is the norm. Much easier when the venue does it for you because they'd just make the set amount you've paid for.

In relaity you do get siblings turn up.

The way I've solved it in the past is not do party bags, but at the end of the party have a tray of cupcakes and a bucket full of shredded paper with little wrapped parcels in- a lucky dip. I always just binged a couple of extras in. Especially if it's books, colouring books, a craft thing because they can go into the cupboard as spare emergency gifts for future parties your child is invited to.

Hobby craft do some great bits for a couple of quid.

If you're doing something special in the party bags (small toy or themed) I'd only do enough for the party guests. If its just sweets I'd probably just do up a few extra, in case anyone has a younger sibling I'd just hand out any spares.
You don't have to do any extra party bags though technically for the guests.
I've made some small siblings happy though & also the parents are usually surprised/grateful.
As for siblings anytime I've brought a sibling to a party, I've paid them in & bought their food. You shouldn't be expected to pay for siblings.

Ok thanks all. The party bags have other things in addition to sweets so I'd need to buy more of everything. Everything we got seemed to be multiples of six and as we had 12 it worked quite nicely.

I did consider buying a few sweet cones and I can hand these out to any siblings then so they didn't leave empty handed. I wasn't sure if giving them something different could backfire if they then looked more appealing than the party bags.

I'm probably overthinking 🤦🏼‍♀️