I spent the last couple days with little Austin, which reminded me that I should do another post about the baby shower in his honor. Last time, we went over the initial stages of party planning, including deciding a theme, creating a menu and coming up with a guest list.

Now that you have taken the first steps, it’s time to forge ahead with the party planning.

Figure out basic logistics

Find your venue and start to plan the layout of your party. We were lucky enough to have my grandmother host at her house. We wanted it to be outside, but knew there was ample space indoors if the weather wasn’t cooperating. The food set-up was inside, with seating outside. Opting to forego tables, we set up seats in clusters in a basic circle shape with TV tray tables scattered throughout to hold drinks and plates. With the decisions made, take time to visualize the day. Try and think of every detail: will you use plastic cutlery, do you have enough plates and glasses? Where will the presents go? What will the timeline be like?

Other options could be to have food served instead of buffet style, have tables with linens and centerpieces, rent out a room at a favorite restaurant… the options are endless. A lot of these decisions are made with the next step in mind: the budget.

Set your budget

This is especially important if you’re working with a group of people. Start with a lump sum, and designate the money towards categories of importance. Do your research instead of assuming the cost of something and make sure to have your logistics in place.

I don’t have specifics of our budget, since my mom did most of the décor shopping and we split up the food duties. We are a frugal group and did our best to keep costs down. We used what we already had. Our colors were blue, white and yellow, so I grabbed what I could find from our home to use: vases, tablecloths, etc. My mom borrowed some décor items used by a friend, and used coupons for other items, like a drink bucket that we plan to use in the future.

Set your theme and start shopping

If possible, it’s good to start shopping as early as possible. The days leading up to the party are hectic enough to have to worry about going from store to store, or paying a ton in shipping.

We decided on a rubber ducky theme and began keeping our eyes open for ducky items, as well as anything in our color scheme: blue, yellow and white. My mom tracked down rubber duckies at Michael’s and nearly cleared them out of their stock. We used these to float in the buckets mentioned above. Oriental Trading Company also had some cute mini duckies that we decided to put on top of cupcakes.

Finalize your menu

It’s also good to shop for food items as early in advance and figure out when you’re going to make everything. Our menu pretty much stayed the same from the beginning: two kinds of sandwiches, two kinds of salads, punch, water, dessert. This was for about 30 people and we ended up having a bunch of food leftover.

Specifically, we had bruschetta-like sandwiches on French bread, croissant sandwiches, pasta salad from Pioneer Woman, and a Chinese chicken salad. For dessert, there were two types of cupcakes, French vanilla and lemon with cream cheese frosting and See’s candies.

Hope that is helpful for anyone planning a shower or party. I’ll be back soon with more tips on planning a baby shower. Until next time!