Simple Bee Themed First Birthday

Ya’ll…I cannot believe I have a one year old. It truly is so surreal. We decided to celebrate her birthday in our home state of Maryland. Because of this, planning her party was kind of hard to do. So, I left most of it in the hands of my mother in law. I just told her we were going with a bee themed birthday party and she ran with it!

Ironically, Hadleigh happens to hate bees. She is deathly afraid of them and has a meltdown every time she sees one…which is multiple times a day. Of course I didn’t realize this until after I was already dedicated to the bee themed birthday. Haha. But, I digress…

I kept it pretty real when “planning” this party. When I was going through Pinterest and looking at all the intricate decor from very talented mamas, I felt a little hopeless. I thought I would be letting Hadleigh down if I didn’t pull out my best DIY mom stunts.

But then I realized, that stuff literally does not matter. What matters is we had a bunch of family and friends show up that we rarely ever see, and Hadleigh had a blast. The decor and planning can be fun and exciting, but sometimes it gets exhausting and overwhelming, especially when you’re out of state. So, I decided to just enjoy myself and this moment of seeing her turn one. It’s a moment I will never get back. Anyway…I digress again 😊

Most of the party was very simple DIY and pretty low key. It wasn’t catered, I didn’t have goody-bags and we didn’t order fancy invitations (I made a Facebook event). My MIL got the decorations from local party stores and such. My sister in law made the beehive cake and smash cake. I gave her the inspiration from this DIY beehive cake post, and she did a great job.

The party was mainly outdoors in the backyard. We set up some pop-up tents due to possible rainy weather, which was actually a good idea to create some shaded area too.

For her smash cake pictures I ordered a lovely handmade highchair banner by PairOfWildFlowers. It had knotted ribbons of yellow and white fabric with tiny bee prints. The bits of greenery and floral really pulled it all together. I loved the summer, rustic look of it.

The banner posted up on the fence read “happy 1st bee day” made by NANApartysimplified on Etsy and was in gold glitter. They have several different options you can choose from.

Her cake topper was from PartyYourWorld on Etsy, also in gold glitter.

Hadleigh’s sweet little bee romper was made by NewBloomsBoutique. I messaged her quite a bit regarding sizing because Hadleigh is very tiny. She always got back to me very quickly, which I loved.

The bee themed birthday party couldn’t have turned out any better. It was simple, laid back and most importantly so much fun. I can’t wait to show Hadleigh these pictures and look back on these most precious moments. These are the days mama!