Do you dream of packing your bags and taking a trip around the world? Jetsetters Bhuvan and Mitu Mathur who have collectively visited over 50 cities planned an appropriately themed ‘Around the world’ party for their daughter Jia’s first birthday !
If you need some inspiration for your kid’s next birthday party, check out this impressive party designed by the super-creative Mitu Mathur..Think globally and celebrate locally with an around-the-world party inspired by a few countries, a specific continent or the whole wide world. Kids will enjoy themselves and learn something new in the process!
Here are the soirée details from the horse’s mouth –
Jia’s first birthday was the most special occasion for us. Being new parents, both of us wanted something different & unique, for which we started planning good 4 months in advance.
Since her birthday 19th November was on a weekday we decided to organise a photo shoot at the Lodi Garden in the afternoon.Our photographer was Mr. Ankit Chawla , who specialises in Kid Photo shoots and is a very talented young guy.The day was spent playing with Jia in the awesome backdrop of her playing in a white gown with us in the lush lawns and then ending with her smashing a large chocolate cake !
For the party the biggest challenge was to select a decent venue and it started with scouting for all major Hotels and Banquets in South Delhi . Since the Birthday was in November
we were also looking at using a venue which had a decent outdoor area.
Finally we zeroed down on the Oodles Hotel in Chhatarpur .With its large lawns and beautiful landscaping the venue was an instant hit.
We as a couple are travel enthusiasts, and have been carrying our daughter around, inevitably without asking her!
This would often lead us to discussions hoping its not unfair for
such a small baby to be on the go so much. Thankfully, our recent return from a trip to Italy with our 8 month old little darling, convinced us that she was also bitten by the travel bug!
So zeroing in on a theme wasn’t tough – our celebration had to be based on Jia’s Travels. We thought it would be interesting to explore the possibility of how kids perceive travel and
what it would mean to them 18 years from now.
We met a number of Party Decorators and Designers to get ideas and suggestions, including some big names in the market. They all had typical ideas and mundane suggestions. Mostly, when we mentioned our theme, we saw raised eyebrows. Hence, we decided to go ahead and design our own party.
An idea which sounded cool but landed us in time consuming arguments, sleepless nights, endless research and lots of physical hard word work to do!
On our recent trip to Italy, we discovered how Jia enjoyed looking at new places. She had a blast there with the Lovely museums , cathedrals , pigeons; and mostly Gelatos and Pizzas!
So, our list included simple things – Famous destinations, popular modes of travel, good food, toys for kids and most important – travel tips.
Which initiated the idea of a Time Capsule for Jia, where all guests could write best wishes for Jia and tips for her when she would turn 18;
on a postcard and put in a box, which would be opened for her on her 18th birthday.
To our surprise, this was the most special gift Jia received on her birthday.
To complement the theme, we got large thermocole posters of Wonders of the world, including Taj mahal, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Egyptian Pyramids, London Bridge, Eiffel Tower etc.
Along side we also bought some DIY models of prominent global monuments like the London Bridge,Eiffel Tower , Taj Mahal etc. and made them ourselves. This again turned into a super fun exercise for both of us. These models were places as standees with balloons to fill us space and the smaller ones as table decor on round tables.
Now, it was important to get lots of airplanes !! So we took the onus finally after scouting the Toy stores got some large and small toy planes.
Complimenting the look were helium Air Plane Baloons which formed an inviting entrance feature.
The smaller toy planes were a great play amongst the young ones.
To add to the excitement, we arranged for a toy train to give rides to the kids.
Many of them did not even want to go away from the train!
Mitu being the architect, decided to make a giant poster which would serve as a backdrop to the cake cutting ceremony. She made a beautiful collage of Jia’s pictures along with interesting graphics of airplanes and iconic monuments exclaiming – Oh! The places she’ll go!!
The cake was designed to be simple and delicious in 3 flavours
– chocolate, red velvet & chocolate-walnut, with pictures of iconic monuments. A three tiered arrangement of cakes, surrounded by smaller cupcakes in 2 flavours
– chocolate & red velvet. The cake table also had small models of iconic monuments, which added to the charm of small things and great pleasure. We got the Cake done by Ms. Anushka of Divin -i Licious cakes ,Vasant Kunj ( 9811961572).
The return gifts were assembled by us from the nearby stores : A bag (from karol bagh) with snow-white for boys and Disney “ Cars “ for boys with a cartoon figures Baby Blankets inside.
We then attached airline luggage tags with the babies name on the tags so it gelled well with the “ travel “ theme.
All in all it was an amazing time and awesome memories of a lifetime for us !
Bhuvan & Mitu Mathur