While it wasn’t always something that brought me joy during our experiences with infertility, one of the best things about having Maisie a couple of years after my closest friends started having babies is that I had a core group of momma’s to talk to all throughout this first year when I had questions - how to approach feeding, how to get everyone more sleep, favorite clothing and baby gear brands to try. So when it was time to start thinking about Maisie’s first birthday party, it was a natural topic of conversation with one particular friend as well!

Developing a theme

My friend Mattye and I loosely began talking about Maisie’s party when she was about six or seven months old. Mattye and her friend Rachel own Namesake Celebrations, a one-stop-shop for curated party boxes, heirloom quality linens, and adorable themes to make celebrations as enjoyable as they are beautiful. Maisie has been the recipient of a few Namesake Celebrations items, some gifted by my dear friend and some that I’ve purchased on my own. It was Maisie’s sweet name banner that really started my theme brainstorming!

As I started thinking about themes for Maisie’s first birthday party, I found myself drawn to things that felt decidedly spring-like. Things like Peter Rabbit, bunnies, and flower gardens show up a lot on Pinterest as baby girl birthday themes, and while I love those things, none of them felt right to me for her first fall birthday. I also thought briefly about rainbows since Maisie is our double rainbow baby, but it also didn’t feel like the right way to celebrate her first year. When I looked at the floral lattice fabric on her name banner it also felt spring-like, but I loved the depth of color included in the pattern - it wasn’t just springtime colors, it also included some blues and greens that felt more like fall to me too.

So I spent some time one weekend morning when Kurt and Maisie were napping thinking about what I love about fall in the hopes that would give me a stronger direction. Kurt and I got married in October as well, so I looked back at our wedding photos for inspiration and started thinking about fall foliage, pumpkin patches, apple orchards, the increase of pie desserts that seem to show up at this time of year, and it hit me: “Sweet as pie & bushels of fun, our little Maisie is turning one!”

I started looking at Etsy for feminine pie themed invitations and quickly realized the options were very slim. Even looking for pie illustrations on Creative Market to DIY an invitation myself proved difficult. So I talked with Mattye about what it was like to work with an illustrator to create a custom invitation since that’s what she did for her children’s birthday parties. She gave me some tips on how to find someone, questions to ask, and I went back to Etsy to find someone to work with. After a couple of hours of looking, I found an illustrator that had lovely invitation suites in her shop that I really liked, Shanon from Pretty Plain Paper. I reached out and shared with her my vision for a “Sweet as Pie” theme and she designed the most beautiful invitation suite! The pie topped with apples and the mix of patterns immediately felt like the perfect way to celebrate our sweet Maisie.

In addition to the invitations, Shanon designed a welcome sign and a birthday milestone sign that we displayed to help welcome guests as they arrived. I loved how we were able to carry the theme through the décor in this way!

party décor

I have a lot of fun decorating my home for the different seasons, and when entertaining, I love how specific décor can help set the tone and create a special experience for guests. Since this party was all about Maisie, I wanted her to show up everywhere!

I printed photos of all of my favorite moments from Maisie’s first year - the milestone photos we took each month, memories from her first beach vacation, candid photos from regular everyday life, and photos with friends and family members as she met them. I displayed them with my normal fall décor items using wire photo holders that I purchased from Amazon. The smaller sized photos I had printed by Parabo Press and the larger sized photos I had printed by Artifact Uprising. The quality of both are lovely, so I’d recommend either option depending on how much you want to spend, the amount of time you have to wait for shipping and the size of photo you’re needing!

Normally I like to use a lot of flowers when entertaining, but I had a limited floral budget this time around. I knew a big statement arrangement was probably going to have the best impact, so I grabbed three big hydrangea bunches from our local flower farmers, Holy Cow Flower Farm, at our weekend farmer’s market the morning of Maisie’s party! I love how they’ll be able to dry all winter long and I’ll have a memory from Maisie’s celebration to make me smile throughout this upcoming season.

the menu & cake

In my early iterations of the party planning, I had grand plans to make pies of all shapes and sizes, both savory and sweet, as a fun nod to the theme. As the party grew closer, and I had to navigate some travel for work and a fall head cold that knocked me down for a couple of days, I quickly realized I wasn’t going to have the time I really needed to execute that menu plan.

So, I took a step back and thought about what has worked really well for me when entertaining in the past. Before the pandemic, Kurt and I used to host a holiday party for our neighbors and friends. Central to that menu has always been a great shredded beef recipe that’s done in the crockpot. When I thought about how to translate that to our fall party, an apple cider pulled pork sounded perfect. It helped carry through the apples from the invitations and was much more crowd friendly from a serving standpoint! By the end of the night, almost the entire crockpot was empty, so I know it’s a recipe to keep in my entertaining back pocket now for the future.

The rest of the menu came together rather quickly once I pivoted away from my pies idea. A homemade pumpkin hummus, roasted butternut squash and pearl couscous salad, carrot pigs in a blanket, a charcuterie-style meat and cheese board with different kinds of crackers, and apple, cheddar, and prosciutto bites helped celebrate some of my favorite flavors of fall as our main menu items. I also included little cups of veggie sticks - one of Maisie’s favorite snacks - and pizza bagel bites for my nephew!

I worked with our favorite local baker, Modern Crumb Bakery, for the cake and Maisie’s mini smash cake. I gave Kathryn full creative license on the flavors and decoration and I just loved how they turned out! Both cakes were vanilla with an apple butter filling. Maisie’s mini smash cake had a vanilla buttercream icing and the larger cake had a salted caramel buttercream icing. In short, they were DIVINE! We still have a rather big section of the larger cake in our freezer to enjoy at a later time as well - I can’t wait!

I also had an assortment of other smaller desserts for folks who weren’t keen on cake. I made apple cider whoopie pies sandwiched with a salted caramel icing, my mom made pumpkin madeleines, and I also made mini apple hand pies with “Happy Birthday!” and “Maisie is 1!” hand stamped on them!

the experience

The day of Maisie’s party was an absolutely perfect fall day - it was breezy and in the high 60s! We had lots of seating outside on our back patio, and really most of our guests spent their time out there visiting with one another and enjoying the weather. We also had seating inside that a few family members that hadn’t seen each other since prior to the pandemic took advantage of for a bit as well. With all of the food set up inside it was a wonderful way to encourage folks to move around our home and meet new people.

When it was time to sing “Happy Birthday” and give Maisie her cake, we decided to take everything outside since that’s where the majority of people were! The Lenten Roses back there have come to mean a lot to me, and I loved being able to share our back garden as the backdrop for this memory.

My nephew Benjamin just loves Maisie and wanted to be front and center to help sing “Happy Birthday” to her. Maisie loves him too - she gets so excited every time she gets to be with him, and I am so happy that she has a cousin to celebrate these big milestones with!

We used Maisie’s name banner to decorate the front of her high chair and she wore a sweet bib from Namesake Celebrations as well. It’s the white linen bib with pink gingham ruffle and pink gingham number one. My friend Mattye also gifted Maisie a sweet birthday hat in pink swiss dot to wear, but Maisie wasn’t too keen on doing so. I love that I can keep it for her next birthday and use it for years to come!

the finishing touches

The one small regret I have is not taking a really good photo of Maisie on the day of her party wearing her special birthday outfit! She wore bloomers from Namesake Celebrations in the floral lattice fabric with a pink swiss dot ruffle - Mattye and I had so much fun coming up with this fabric pairing together! We exchanged voice messages back and forth for weeks as we talked through the fabric options and landed on our final choice. I paired them with a white peter pan onesie that has a sweet pink ricrac trim at the collar and sleeves, and then topped it all off with the peplum cardigan sweater that I made for her!

I love that all of these pieces can be used separately from one another, and that they’ll remind me of this fun day when she wears them again and again.

In addition to Maisie’s name banner and the bib she wore while enjoying her cake, there were a couple of other items from Namesake Celebrations that made their way into the party décor as well: both of the cake toppers and the bunting that hung on the front of the food table. The number one topper is made in the pink gingham fabric and the circle topper is white linen with pink script embroidery. Mattye surprised me by putting pink swiss dot fabric on the back of the circle topper as well since we had used that fabric in a couple of places in the décor! The bunting is a pairing of the pink linen and pink swiss dot fabrics. And just like Maisie’s outfit, I love that each of these pieces can be used again and again on their own or as a set!

The last finishing touch that I included was a special cake stand for Maisie’s mini smash cake. I found it on Etsy and love its sweet, small size. It fits a 4-inch round cake perfectly, and will work for cupcakes just as well! I had Maisie’s first and middle name stamped on it along with her birthdate. It’s one of those special pieces that I know I’ll be excited to pull out year after year as we celebrate her birthday.

Thank you for sharing in these special moments from Maisie’s first birthday party! Whether small or large, I hope it provided you an idea or inspiration for your next celebration. I’ve gathered a list of sources down below, and I’m more than happy to answer any questions I may not have covered in the post as well!