The brief
A first birthday at a garden restaurant in Sanur, running from afternoon into the evening. Safari — but the family did not want a nursery version of it, and at one year old the person the party has to work for is really the mother holding him.
What we built
The whole set in sand, cream, sky blue and burnt orange instead of primary colours. A curved board carrying <i>Owen, 1 Year Party</i> in gold, a zebra, a giraffe and a gazelle cut and painted by hand, dried pampas and palm fans built through the balloon garland, and white plinths to place him on. It reads as styling rather than as decoration, which is the difference between a first birthday you frame and one you delete.
How the day went
A small ball pit went down on the grass beside the set, and he sat in it, which at one is a full activity. A giant white character came to meet him at his own height, slowly. Then the light went, the string lights came on, and the bubble show ran into the dark — big, slow bubbles lit from underneath, with the older children chasing them across the lawn and the adults standing about with drinks watching it happen.
What the parents got
A palette that will still look good in ten years, one perfect frame of mother and son under the trees, and an evening they spent as guests.
