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How to Plan a Small Birthday Party: 9 Tips for Intimate Gatherings

Whether you are hosting a kid’s birthday party or an adult’s, you don’t need to hire a huge venue and invite dozens of guests for everyone to have a good time. Sometimes, smaller gatherings can be just as much fun – or even better.

For one thing, it’s cheaper to host and cater for fewer people. So, if you’re on a tight budget, having a more intimate gathering is a useful way of helping you save money. They’re also safer, as they allow for better social distancing. But best of all, small parties allow everyone to connect with one another, as the person whose birthday it is can spend more one-on-one time with each guest.

But if you’re used to hosting huge parties, you might scratch your head at the idea of planning a tiny birthday party. How do you keep things fun and festive with so few people? Here are nine valuable tips for planning a small birthday celebration that your guests will love.

1. Find a Small Venue or Host at Home

When it comes to small birthday parties, it’s best to scale back on the size of your venue. Booking a huge party hall for only 10 people is unnecessary and over-the-top; not to mention, a waste of money. The trouble is that it can be difficult to find smaller birthday party venues that won’t make your small gathering seem somewhat empty or lacking.
If you’re having fewer than a dozen guests, it makes more sense to host the party at home. It doesn’t matter if your house doesn’t look as perfect as a prop home out of an interior design catalogue: your party guests won’t care! As long as there’s food, drink, games and fun, everyone will have a great time anyway. Your guests will feel included and are happy they were invited.

You could even host the party outdoors – in your garden, or a local park. It’s free, there’s no need to decorate (as you’re surrounded by the beauty of nature), and it’s more pandemic-friendly, too.

2. Send Out Personalised Party Invitations

One of the great things about cosier birthday gatherings is that you can afford to spend more time on the little details. Sending out custom-designed party invitations adds a great personal touch to the occasion.

Professionally printed personalised party invitations may look fancy, but they aren’t expensive (especially because you don’t need to order very many of them for a smaller gathering). They’ll certainly make a great first impression on your invitees, compared to inviting them via text or buying a generic pack of party invites from the shop. You can design party invitations to suit almost any theme imaginable, and personalise them within minutes with the details of your party.

One huge benefit of sending out paper invitations is that it will encourage guests to take the party more seriously. They’re more likely to RSVP if they receive a physical invitation, especially if you include a reply card with it. This will help you get a more accurate head count, which is all-important for smaller gatherings.

3. Invest in Good Party Food

Virtually everyone loves food – especially when it comes to parties. If you asked the average person what’s the thing they’re most looking forward to about an upcoming birthday celebration, they’d probably answer “food” or “cake”!

So, don’t skimp on the food when you’re hosting your small gathering. Because you’ve got fewer guests, you don’t have to worry so much about catering costs, or prioritise serving the cheapest food possible. You can afford to be a little ‘extra’ if you want to, whether that’s by hiring a caterer, ordering a takeaway for everyone, or simply going all-out with a fancy home-made party spread.

You could even turn the food into a fun activity for everyone to get involved in. For example:
1) Have a make-your-own pizza party, with a selection of toppings
2) Cheese fondue
3) Chocolate fountain
4) Bake a few batches of cupcakes in advance, and set up a decoration station with different icings and sprinkles

Remember: well-fed guests are happy guests! And if this is an adult party, don’t forget the booze, too. This can really help ease the initial awkwardness of small parties.

4. Make Your Own Cake

No birthday party is complete without a birthday cake. But because you’re having a small party, it would be a bit unnecessary to order a custom birthday cake from a professional baker. These cakes are usually quite expensive, and big enough to feed at least 16-20 people, if not more.

You don’t have anywhere near that many guests, so to avoid wasting your money (and a lot of food), why not bake your own birthday cake at home? That way, you can control the size of the cake and ensure you only make enough for your party guests. You’ve also got free reign to flavour and decorate the cake to your exact liking.
If you’re no great shakes in the kitchen, no-one will begrudge you popping to the supermarket and picking up a little pre-made cake from their bakery. All you need is some party candles (and maybe a sparkler)!

5. Choose a Party Theme

Most birthday parties these days have a “theme”. Pirates, unicorns, dinosaurs and princesses are popular party themes for the little ones. A teenager might prefer a party based around their favourite book, video game, or movie. And as for the adults, your choices are almost endless – from “spa day” to “board game night” to “evening at the Oscars”. Themes always make party planning easier, as you have a central motif around which to base your decorations, activities and food. It will also make the whole thing feel more like a party, which is helpful if there won’t be many guests.

Themed paper plates, straws and balloons can really tie a kid’s themed party together. For more grown-up celebrations, you might invest in themed table centrepieces and crockery, a photo booth or tasteful buntings to hang on the wall.
Whatever theme you choose, ensure you forewarn your guests by picking a matching themed party invitation – and be sure to specify on the invite if you want your guests to dress up!

6. Think Carefully About Who to Invite

You don’t have to invite absolutely everyone you know to your birthday party to have a good time. This is something that a lot of people learn as they get older. However, what matters is who you invite.
If you know that you’re only going to invite a few guests this time – whether that’s for budget reasons, personal preference, or because of government restrictions – you should ensure you choose the right people. Pick those who you are closest to, and who you couldn’t imagine spending the day without. It’s also a great opportunity to invite people who are a little shyer, and don’t feel comfortable in big crowds.
Be sure to specify on your invitations if you don’t want guests to bring their children, or if plus-ones aren’t allowed. Having a head count twice as large as you’d planned may be a disaster at a smaller party.

7. Accept Help If You’re Offered It

You may think that a small birthday party will be quick, easy and stress-free to organise compared to a huge celebration with dozens of people in attendance. However, you might be surprised to learn that planning a smaller party can take just as much time to plan. And because there are so few guests, you may feel as though there’s a lot riding on you to make everything perfect.

So, if there are people that you’ve invited that want to extend a helping hand, let them. Whether they want to bring a side dish for your party table, pick up some decorations for you, or bring along their favourite board game to play, accept any help you’re offered. Don’t feel like you’re failing as a host just because someone else wanted to help out.

8. Plan Plenty of Party Activities

One of the problems with smaller birthday parties is that you have to plan specific activities for everyone. At larger gatherings, there are so many people there that you can almost get away with letting the party run itself – everyone will spend so long chatting and catching up that it’s an activity all on its own.

But if you’ve only got 6 people coming, you can’t rely on socialisation to take up more than a few minutes. So, plan some activities in advance that you can suggest if things start to get a little boring. For example:

1) Classic party games, such as pin the tail on the donkey, charades, musical chairs, and blind man’s buff
2) Manicures, pedicures and facials
3) Board games
4) Dance-off
5) Karaoke
6) Trivia
7) Wine tasting
8) Scavenger or treasure hunt
9) Put on a good film (with popcorn!)
10) Cocktail or mocktail making
11) Card games e.g. poker

You should base these activities around your party theme, as well as taking into consideration the personalities of whoever’s coming. If they’re party animals, they may not be interested in playing scrabble or trivial pursuit. But steer clear of dance-offs and karaoke if your friends are shy, or don’t like being the centre of attention.

9. Don’t Forget the Music

Some sort of music is absolutely vital at any party – but particularly a small party where you can’t rely as much on general chatter and babble for background noise. The last thing you want is for everyone to turn up and stand around awkwardly making small talk with no music playing help ease the awkward silences.

For a tiny party with only a few people, it’s not really feasible to hire live music or a DJ. So, make sure you at least invest in a good sound system (if you don’t have one, ask around – someone in your family or friend group will have one you can borrow) and make a great party playlist to have playing in the background throughout the day/evening. And clear a space for people to dance, just in case!

Order Your Personalised Party Invitations Today with 123Print

When you’re ready to order your personalised party invitations, head over to 123Print and browse our fantastic range of templates. We have designs suitable for a whole range of occasions, including kid’s parties, boozy grown-up bashes, baby showers and everything in between. And don’t forget the RSVP cards, especially if it’s important for you to have an accurate head count before the big day.

While you’re there, did you know that we also stock a fabulous range of fully customisable birthday cards? They’re perfect for milestone birthdays, or if you simply want to show the birthday person just how much they mean to you. You can edit the message inside with your own wording, and even add your own artwork or photograph to the card for a special touch.

We aim to dispatch and ship out all orders within 2 working days of customer proof approval. So what are you waiting for? Start preparing for your perfect birthday party today!