To take you back on my initial birthday planning journey, I wanted a bright hall with lots of windows – something that was lively and open would be more birthday like than having it at a restaurants banquet hall or the typical community centre with a gym floor. After many hours and weeks of searching, I found the perfect hall that was friendly on the pocket and provided me with the bright natural lit hall I was looking for. After my husband and I discussed it back and forth, I knew I couldn’t wait too long before the hall would be snatched up right before my eyes…after all it is wedding season! So her birthday lands on a Sunday this year, so the plan was to either have the birthday on Saturday or Sunday. I mean honestly speaking Sunday afternoon would have been ideal, but of course the halls that I LOVED were unavailable during the afternoon time slots on the Sunday. Saturday to my luck was available after 2pm, so I thought wonderful, that would be great and even though it was a day before her big day, I was totally okay with that given how difficult it was finding a hall that I was sold on. My husband still thought doing it in a banquet hall would be perhaps more economical where food could also be provided along with the hall and we wouldn’t have to do the work associated with having it in a community centre (set-up, take-down, plates, cutlery, etc). I get it, but I didn’t want the typical restaurant…after all, 1st birthdays only come once! After the debate back and forth, I finally convinced my husband that a 1st birthday needed to be somewhere bright even if that meant doing the work ourselves of setting up tables and chairs and bringing catered food in, I was willing to do that, but him not so much.
Now here is the big bummer, the hall was no longer available for the few hours (2pm to 6pm) I wanted it for, it was only available on the Saturday from 2:00 – 4:00 pm. Now keep in mind we had to set up and take down in that two hour time frame. It is impossible to set up and all of that, have a birthday, take everything down and clean up all in two hours…basically there was no way I could have the birthday and be done and out of there by 4 if I was given the hall at 2. I was back to the drawing board until the option of Sunday evening came about. They had the hall available for Sunday evening after 5:00 pm…now as a mother I was totally devastated, as I had come to the conclusion that this was the worst thing ever and her birthday was not working the way I had hoped… and as any mother would envision, something like this only happens once and for that reason it is imperative that it is PERFECT. After a few hours of looking at other halls, I thought it was in our best interest to take the hall on the Sunday evening. Even though it is a child’s birthday, I was, and still am a bit worried that 5:00 pm is a bit late for people to come, but than also thought, who parties it up for hours at a child’s birthday anyways, so I guess it could work (it was going to have to work) after all, we didn’t have much choice left and time was ticking. It was almost a month before the big day and I needed to get the invitations out….
Now keep in mind we had to set up and take down in that two hour time frame. It is impossible to set up and all of that, have a birthday, take everything down and clean up all in two hours…basically there was no way I could have the birthday and be done and out of there by 4 if I was given the hall at 2. I was back to the drawing board until the option of Sunday evening came about. They had the hall available for Sunday evening after 5:00 pm…now as a mother I was totally devastated, as I had come to the conclusion that this was the worst thing ever and her birthday was not working the way I had hoped… and as any mother would envision, something like this only happens once and for that reason it is imperative that it is PERFECT. After a few hours of looking at other halls, I thought it was in our best interest to take the hall on the Sunday evening. Even though it is a child’s birthday, I was, and still am a bit worried that 5:00 pm is a bit late for people to come, but than also thought, who parties it up for hours at a child’s birthday anyways, so I guess it could work (it was going to have to work) after all, we didn’t have much choice left and time was ticking. It was almost a month before the big day and I needed to get the invitations out….