When we asked Maia what kind of party she wanted, she was adamant (after changing her mind a few times) that she wanted a piggy party. And no, not Peppa Pig, actual pigs, she loves them!

Now you know me, I love a good party. I really enjoy putting it together, the décor, the DIY… what I don’t enjoy is the costs racking up so as always I made a massive effort to keep the party as budget friendly as I could while still giving Maia the piggy party she was so excited about. In the end, the party came in at just under R1500 including the cake which I think is really good considering we were 17 adults and 10 kids.

I’m so excited to share some beautiful photos (taken by the best of the best, Tamaryn Lee Photography) of the day with you as well as the suppliers I used and my tips to keep costs low.

A massive expense when throwing a birthday party is the venue, they can charge upwards of R3000 and while a venue is incredibly convenient, it just wasn’t in our budget. The first option is to host your party at home. When it comes to kids parties I prefer not to do this for a few reasons: there always seems to be more mess, things get broken, kids run wild in all the bedrooms and I generally find myself more on edge than I need to be. So what’s the solution? A great public park! I’m always banging on about how we need to support our neighbourhood parks, they’re such gems and are the perfect spot to host kids parties; there’s room for kids to run around, there are jungle gyms and they’re free (although it would be great to make a donation to the department that maintains the park)! Two tips on picking your park: most importantly make sure that it’s safe and secondly make sure that there’s a shady spot to set up your party table. The only downside to having a party at a park is that there more than likely won’t be bathroom facilities, so make sure to warn your guests about this.

The next big party expense is food, and again, I have a few tips to help you out over here.

• I choose to outsource my cakes because I know it’s not my strong point and will only stress me out. Our go to gal is Michelle from Purple Whisk; she’s affordable, her cakes are so delicious (everyone ALWAYS comments on this) and she always delivers exactly what I’m after.
• Host your party at a time where people wont expect a meal (although to be honest I never expect a meal at a birthday party). We much prefer the morning so we have our parties at 10am which gives us enough time to set up before everyone arrives.

• Have cute but not complicated food. For Maia’s party I had little cupcake holders with berries, mini heart marshmallows, rice crispie treats, popcorn, coconut ice, some biscuits also from Purple Whisk and then a small cheese and charcuterie board with a loaf of ciabatta for the adults. And of course the cake ?
• In terms of drinks, we serve fruit juice and water. I pour the fruit juice (I found 4l was the perfect amount) into two glass carafes and I take along my 5l water dispenser for the water and pop in some lemon.

• To serve the food and drinks I use paper plates and cups, it’s just the easiest in terms of clean up and some of them can be recycled. To keep with the piggy theme, I had pink plates, cups and serviettes. On the plates I glued little piggy ears which looked so sweet!
• Try buy your sweets, chips, etc at a bulk shop, I went to Sunrise Sweets and it was MUCH cheaper than going to my usual grocery store.

Let’s chat party packs. Of course they are not something you have to do at all, I mean you have just provided an entire party and morning of fun. Personally I enjoy putting them together but I only do them for the party, not for birthday ring at school and I keep them really simple in terms of what I put into them. For Maia’s party each little pack had a small box juice, a sucker, a bag of candyfloss (I took a bag and split it in half) and a bottle of bubbles. I must say, I LOVE how the little piggy party packs turned out and they really weren’t difficult to make. All I needed was some coloured card, googly eyes, double sided tape and then some pink pipe cleaners for the tail. They took me one evening to put together and they were such a hit!

Onto décor, I really don’t go too wild here, I try to find a few key items that will make a big impact. What I find helps is to keep the actual party set up small. So all we really have is our table and then decorate around that so it really isn’t a big space to fill.

For the piggy party I had a big pink number 2 helium foil balloon and a piggy helium foil balloon (big thanks to one of my followers who passed on the piggy balloon!) which always look great. Then I made a little pig balloon garland which was incredibly easy to whip up and looked amazing once we had tied it up between two branches of the tree we set up underneath. On the actual table I made sure that some of the foods wese at different heights; this is really easy to do; simply pop a few boxes under the tablecloth, put your cake on a cake stand, wooden crates look lovely as well. Lastly I popped up one of our letterboards which always looks fun. And that’s it! Really simple but effective.

I was so happy with how Maia’s piggy party turned out; everyone had a great time and Maia was absolutely thrilled which to be honest is all that really matters to us at the end of the day.

Here are a few other party blog posts I’ve done:

A birthday celebration for Maia and a note on sibling jealousy

A dinosaur party on a budget

A Teddy Bear’s Picnic Party for Aria’s 3rd Birthday

Aria’s pink princess party, and learning to let go