Eloise’s first birthday party was on Sunday, and we had the best time! We honestly thought that Ouisie would be in the hospital instead of at her birthday party over the weekend after she came down with a low grade fever and cold; her oxygen saturation levels would get dangerously low (like 80%) and she would be put on her oxygen concentrator, but it would only help a little bit. Luckily, LUCKILY, Eloise was on the mend on Saturday and was close to being 100% healthy by the time of her party. Thanks to wonderful friends who came to celebrate our sweet girl, her party was a huge success and one for the record books!
Eloise’s birthday was lemon-themed, and while it was a lighthearted theme, it had a lot of meaning for us. This past year of Eloise’s life has been really humbling, and we’ve really learned the meaning of the phrase, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade“. I knew this would be the perfect theme for her first birthday, and it was perfect for our girl. So lemons and lemonade it was!
I started planning the party a few weeks ago and began brainstorming about decorations on Pinterest with a secret pin board. Invitations were the first things I pinned, and I ended up sending several screen shots of previously made invitations to my friend Kara Giles, who owns Nest Paper Studio in Oxford, Mississippi, to create Eloise’s first birthday invitation. Kara designed our wedding invitations, thank you notes, stationery, and every birthday party invitation for Walter; I couldn’t imagine a Weiss birthday party without her and her paper!
Eloise’s party dress was designed and embroidered by the incredibly talented Lauren Fox, and she has the sweetest shop called Shop Elli Fox! She and I had been talking for weeks about doing a dress for Eloise’s first birthday, and she blew me away with her creativity. The dress, a Proper Peony blank pleat, has pink lemonade glasses embroidered on either side of her name, and “easy peasy lemon squeezy” is embroidered on the left side of the dress. Peek-a-boo lemons are found on one of the back pleats of the dress too! Needless to say, this dress is getting framed because it’s an absolute work of art. A separate blog post about Shop Elli Fox will be on the blog soon because this dress, and Lauren’s beautiful designs, deserve so much more than just a paragraph!
As things started to come together with invitations and her dress (the two most important things, right?!), I knew I wanted was to build a fun backdrop for the party and for Eloise’s smash cake session. There were so many great ideas on party backdrops on Pinterest, but the one that really spoke to me was the Cake and Confetti boxwood wall. She has step-by-step instructions on her website here to DIY your own boxwood wall, and after sweet talking Peter into making it, he was stapling fake boxwood to plywood in front of our garage. I wish I could take credit for the darling decorative placement on the boxwood wall, but it was all Kristyne and Chelsea; those two are c-r-e-a-t-i-v-e!
The cakes were inspired by Pinterest, and JillyCakes of Orlando created this two-tier beauty and the lemon-shaped smash cake. The top tier of the birthday cake was vanilla flavored, and the bottom tier was lemon! JillyCakes may sound familiar to you if you’re a fan of Cupcake Wars- Jillian has been on the show three times and has won! She is incredibly talented, and her work is delicious too 🙂
We also had sweet treats to hand out to our guests as party favors from Cookie Cousins! Lemon slices, grapefruit slices, mason jars with lemonade, and lemon wedges were the shapes we chose for our friends.
One final detail that I made sure to have was to get a manicure, and my favorite manicurist, Brooke, went above and beyond to have my nails match Eloise’s birthday invitation! How cute are these nails?! If you are in the Orlando area, you need to see Brooke at Nail Alchemy in Winte Park. They are the best, hands down! Yes, those are lemons and lemon slices!
Here are a few more photos from Eloise’s birthday party, and gosh, we just had the best time! I can’t thank our friends and family enough for celebrating our girl on Sunday!
And now, here’s what everyone’s been wanting to see- the smash cake photos! Eloise loved the idea of the cake but once she got messy and had icing on her hands, she was d-o-n-e.
Eloise,
Your birthday party was such a special day, and many people came to love you and celebrate YOU! You’ve made it to a year old and you’re getting closer to becoming a toddler than a baby, which makes me so happy; there were some days over the past year that made your first birthday seem so far away and struggle to get to. But here you are, with your first birthday party behind you! You looked so happy to be around the people you know and love, just not when you got a little messy with your smash cake (hello meltdown!). We celebrate you today, tomorrow, and always. We love you so much, our miracle baby!
xo Mommy, Daddy, and Walter
Love this post so much what a sweet miracle girl!