How To Plan an 18th On a Budget

Welcome to a new post!

If you aren't aware, I recently celebrated my 18th birthday, and had a really lovely party with all of my friends and family. To be fair, it's actually been nearly a month since my birthday, which is absolutely crazy, nevertheless I still felt like doing a little - hopefully helpful to a few people -  blogpost on how to plan a birthday party like that, especially without spending more money than necessary. It's still not the cheapest thing, keep that in mind, but there are things that make it easier.

Planning a birthday party can be either very stressful, or pretty alright, considering how much you've got planned and when you start picking up your work. Which already leads me to my first tip...

TIME MANAGEMENT & GENERAL STUFF

Time management is the key to stress relief when you are planning a bit of a bigger party. Don't wait until a week before the day to start your planning.

I advise you to start looking for a location three to one months before the party is supposed to happen, if you are not planning on celebrating at home or another free property possible to you. I know that may seem like a long time, but I actually saw some people struggling to still find a spot a month before the date.

I personally invited my guests around 3 weeks before the party to make sure that most of them would be able to come. Definitely don't wait to long, because otherwise there is a risk that a lot of people will already have plans for that day.

Also try to write down any ideas and plans you have got beforehand, so that you kind of half a plan of the things you need to buy and get done before the party.

We ordered dinner about two weeks beforehand. Definitely don't wait until the day because in case you are planning on wanting a huge stack of pizzas, not every place will be able to do that in time for you.

We bought decorations about a month before the party, but I guess you can even do that the week before the party, depending on your preference and time plan. Depending on how much you want to decorate and need to prepare, you should probably start around a day before the party. That way you easily notice whether anything is still missing and you need to get before it's too late.

INSPIRATION & DECORATION

This was probably my favourite bit about the whole thing, plainly because I just love everything that involves a little bit of creativeness, decorating and scrolling through Pinterest for hours. I know I keep saying this whenever I talk about finding any inspiration but again - Pinterest is the place to go. Not gonna lie, I've probably had a Pinterest board filled with birthday party inspiration since like Summer. Even if you just want to do little decoration or whether you are still looking for some foody ideas, you can find everything on there.

Shopping decorations is another fun part of it, although I do have to say that having your birthday around Christmas definitely makes it a lot easier because you can pretty much buy anything Christmassy and wintery.

I really recommend you go looking around any cheap cluttery stores instead, like 1€ shops. We made the mistake of making it the last place to go on our little trip, and we might have saved quite some money if we would have gone there first. There really is no need to pay 12€ on Amazon for a pair of beautiful, golden 18 balloons, because they sell them for less than 3€ in these shops.
They honestly have a lot of nice stuff, and considering that quite a few bits you will get you might not use again, it doesn't really make sense to spend too much money on it when you can get pretty stuff for really pretty money.

Also, if you have the possibility, time and motivation to do anything yourself, any kind of DIYs I definitely recommend you to do so.

I will link my inspiration board for my birthday HERE, if anyone is interested in seeing all of the ideas I have had. I have actually used quite a few of them, even though it ended up looking totally different to my first thoughts on how I was going to do it.

FOOD & DRINKS

Definitely don't wait to long with the food planning. Ask yourself in time what kind of foods you will need, what would be the easiest to get or make and if you could let any family members or friends make anything to add to it. Don't do everything yourself, because that will be way too much stress unless you are only planning for a small group of people.

Try everything to release some stress from it, because you will want to enjoy the day and not want to spend the day worrying about all the different things you need to bake and cook before the guest come, and still get ready at some point.

We personally ordered pizza even though that wasn't our dream option, but there was no way we would have been able to prepare so many snacks and cakes for the rest of the day and still make dinner. It's also easy and pretty much everyone likes it, and not too expensive either.

Pinterest also has some amazing things on there if you actually are looking into making a few things yourself. Definitely ask some people that might have an idea about it and plan how much you actually need so you don't end up with a hungry group of guests or way too much food left over.

Also, try and kind of plan what and how much you need concerning drinks. What do people drink, what would you like to try, how much do you need of which, are there any people that need certain things like non fizzy water or any other non alcoholic drinks for the drivers and kids?

Take into consideration, that there will always be a few people that won't end up coming and cancel last minute because someone's gotten ill or anything else. My dad likes to say that 10% usually cancel, if that helps anyone.

MUSIC

Not everyone might want music at their party or be really bothered about it, but I personally really wanted a really good playlist, without any music that I wouldn't enjoy. I literally only put stuff on there that I liked, and even though it now contains over 300 songs, I will be able to look through it and listen to it for many more years to go.

I can definitely recommend getting a free Spotify premium thingy for something like a party, because it's truly awesome, you basically have every song on their except for Taylor Swift, and if you don't want to spend any money on it you can stop the contract when the free part is over and still use it, just with those annoying adverts back in. But that's obviously up to you I guess.

FUN & ACTIVITIES

This probably won't be a point everyone is interested in, but I wanted to make sure that we would capture the day somehow and not make it get boring if people don't feel like chatting the whole night. I mean alcohol helps with a bunch of teenagers slash young adults, but there is always that one possibility.

I personally love photography, and so what I decided to do was not only bring my camera, but also get disposables. You can't re-do pictures, you can't look at them until they have been printed and they are sooo much cheaper than getting actual polaroid cameras. Sure, they don't have that cute frame, but if you wanted to you could still edit that on the pictures afterwards. If you want to save money though, definitely get these.

We had so much fun with them, and I really wish I would have gotten more than 3 cameras purely for the fun. A lot of these pictures would have been deleted on a normal camera, but let me tell you, they turned out so bloody awesome.

I also prepared some things for a little photo session with my actual camera, which you can easily make yourself or buy for little money, and it definitely makes it so much more fun to take pictures.

Activity wise I didn't prepare that much, but as we are all into playing card games at the moment, I made sure to have some there if anyone wanted them. Cards Against Humanity is also a nice idea, as long as you are not planning on playing it with your grandparents maybe, but I guess that's up to you haha.

SAVE, BUDGET & BORROW

Here are some other tips to save money for a party like that if you don't have the biggest budget. Put some money away for it a few months before the party, which you only use for that purpose.

If you only have a certain amount of money available for this, definitely budget. Try to make a list of how much you want to spend on food, drinks, location, decorations etc. And also try your best and stick to it. It doesn't always have to be the most expensive and beautiful decoration for it to be an amazing party. In the end it's not the decoration that counts but the night and the people itself.

Borrowing is also a tip. Whether it's just borrowing some bowls, decorations or extra tables that are needed - you don't have to buy everything! Especially with cakes and salads, you can also ask some people whether they would be able to make you something. It's not only time and money saving, but also is a slight stress relief for you. Don't be too afraid to ask.

I know some of these tips might have been obvious, but you never know who you might inspire and help with posts like this. You are free to leave any suggestions, ideas, tips whatever below and share them with us, obviously.

I personally really enjoyed planning that party, and even though I would never work in a job that includes party planning, it definitely made me want to organize a few more parties in the future...or just little get togethers.
It can be a really fun process if you do it right and do it with a smile on your face. It might get stressy and not everything will turn out the way you want it to, but remember that it will all be worth it in the end. Keep smiling, don't forget that. 😊

Have a beautiful week ♥

Love, Jacqueline Xx