Fab Fete- Korean 1st Birthday Details on a Dohl

100 days old

Koreans mark the 100th day, 1st birthday and the 60th as momentous occasions similar to how we Americans might celebrate a sweet 16 or bar mitzvah.  Above are some shots from when Juliet was just 100 days old.  Both of us are in our hanboks (Korean traditional dresses).  And it seems like just yesterday when we took these shots and she could barely sit on her own.  Yet here we are months afterwards, celebrating her first year.  Click here and here for the details on her birthday party’s decor and all the DIY details.  This Fab Fete post will focus more on the traditional Korean ceremony, the doljabi.

Both hanboks that you see featured on little Juliet were rented from Little Seouls Party for $45 (half the price of buying one and then never wearing it again).   They are the only English online store that rents Hanboks -believe me I searched around!  And thankfully, they were great to work with, answering all my questions and guaranteeing my shipment by the requested date.

korean first birthday

“It’s my birthday and I can cry if I want.”  Teething sucks.

Luis Enrique Rivera Cuyar Luis Enrique Rivera Cuyar Every Korean first birthday features dol towers like these.  Traditional ones are made with black and cream colored beans but that didn’t match my decor so I took the liberty of making mine with pink and green candy (along with paper towel rolls, and a glue gun).  Gettin’ crafty here!  Before you know it, I’ll be scrapbooking and weaving baskets!  Also, I chose not to follow the usual tradition of placing these at the head table, or in my case, the dessert table and instead sat them next to the children’s art easel area so that section would tie into the rest of the party decor.

korean first birthday

That’s the easel and drawing station in the background there with the grandparents and Juliet in the foreground.  For more on the fun fact signs that you see besides the art station, see my earlier post.

first birthday party

Onto the main Korean cultural ceremony, the doljabi.  This is where the child is presented several items, all of which represent something for his/her future. Whatever the child picks up first is supposed to predict the future.  Traditional  items include rice which symbolizes an abundant life, yarn or string which symbolizes a long life, a book or pencil which symbolizes academic success, cash which represents wealth, and some sort of doctor and lawyer professional items.  I chose to modernize my doljabi by adding in career symbols that matched our careers (something in fashion and something in finance).  And for a fun touch, I played ‘gangnam style’ music in the background and had Psy as one of the items to choose from.  All other party background music had ‘baby’ in the lyrics.  ‘Rice Rice Baby’, a mock of ‘Ice Ice Baby’ was a perfect fit for this occasion.

korean dohl

doljabi

Guests fill in the raffle card with their name and place it by the item they think she’ll choose.  Juliet crawled over and with eyes glued to Psy, then freaked out when she heard everyone cheering for her and started melting down under pressure.  But on the 2nd try, she chose the crystal calculator symbolizing a career in finance (like daddy)!

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The cash was her 2nd choice.

Here are my roundup tips on how to make a first birthday affordable.  I did this all on a strict budget and you can too!

  1. Cut staffing.  Look around you and find talented friends and family to help you wherever you can.  For us, instead of hiring an event planner, I did my own doljabi research, found all the necesary items and prepared all the party decor myself.  Others may want to make their own food, have relatives bake, or have a talented friend take the photos/video.
  2. Skip the florals.  They’re a luxury at a first birthday party and totally unnecessary.
  3. Shop sales ahead of time.  You know the birth date  so plan ahead.  I covered that pool table in the middle of the room with a pink remnant cloth that I bought at an after-Christmas sale.  Anything from platters to birthday dresses can be found deeply discounted around holiday shopping periods.
  4. Re-purpose stuff around the house.  I took my husband’s extra tv stand box, covered it in patterned paper and used it as a riser for my dessert table.  A bed sheet and curtain set became my dessert bar backdrop.
  5. Shop the dollar store.  You can find everything from kid’s favors, to simple snacks and munchies, to art activity sets there.  I bought all my tissue paper (which I turned into fringe), plastic tablecloths,yarn and money for the doljabi and other small items there.
  6. Check out wholesalers online.  My balloons and candy were bought through an online wholesaler for example.

Finally, since every event has its mishaps, here’s my list of what went wrong:

  1. Someone accidentally tipped over an entire platter of kim bop, (the Korean sushi that I had at the snack bar). Luckily I was clueless to this fact until post-party when I disassembled the snack table only to find a mountain of uneaten kimbop on the floor, underneath the tablecloth.  What a waste! I’m just glad I didn’t see it happen .  Ignorance is bliss.
  2. The cake colors were off and it came out not like I wanted (topsy turvy is what I asked for) but I think this only bothered me.
  3. People had issues finding parking and therefore showed up late.  So even though I had purposely planned it for the only day of the week where NYC had free street parking, and reminded guests with an email asking them to allot extra time to find parking, some guests had a hard time and I felt bad about this.
  4. With all that was going on setting up 4 different areas, I forgot to lay out the champagne and water bottles til half the party was over!
  5. The 100 balloons which I had planned to be blown up and scattered all over the floor so kids could kick their way through a balloon lounge never got blown up.  This is thanks to me hiring my hubby as my event assistant.  Event planning newbies always under-estimate the time it takes to finish event planning tasks.
  6. Cake is not as irresistible as I had thought.  I ordered 1 slice for each person and could have fed my entire apartment complex because of it.  We had way too much cake.  For my (strange) guests, I learned I need only order for only 1/3 to 1/5 the amount of people who RSVP.  I was left hawking cake to the doormen, guests and anyone who looked hungry.

Here’s a shot of Juliet post-party enjoying her 2nd cake smash.  We added parts of her presents (the princesses) to the cake and used them as cake toppers.

cake smash

Happy Birthday Juliet!

Read on to see all the details of the rest of her party!

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How To Design a Picture Perfect Birthday Party for a Little Princess

Planning

I naively thought that I could dreamily plan out my daughter’s birthday parties for at least the first 5 years of her life. Anyone who knows me knows I love planning parties and knows that I find any random excuse to celebrate.  Kids’ White party to celebrate the end of summer, anyone??  So here I am with carefully thought-through party ideas for her 1st through 5th birthday parties..not kidding check out my Pinterest page…and then my precocious, soon-to-be 4 year old daughter throws a wrench in my plans and independently comes up with her own ideas.  Princess Party!

And boy was she specific!

  • “princess theme with pink”
  • “I want it to be a tea party”
  • “I want to sit in a queen’s chair!”
  • “I want a princess cake like Olivia’s (referencing a Barbie cake)”
  • “lots of CANDY!”
  • only 4 guests” (tells me exactly who to invite and that this year it has to be a small party)
  • “I want to set the table!”

OK OK!  I get it. You want to be a princess!  So back to the drawing board I went and through our collaborative research/discussion and approval phase, we came up with a non-Disney-specific, princess tea party with pink, white and metallic colors running throughout.  Here’s how I transformed our NY apartment into a picture-perfect party palace and here are tips on how you can design yours on a budget too:

Backdrop

We have a large white, blank wall currently devoid of art, or frames which not only gives our living room, a clean minimalistic feel but also allows me to easily transform the space each holiday or for any celebration.  I turned this wall into a beautiful photo backdrop with my 1 splurge piece, this beautifully printed banner from Iconica Design.  The large scale immediately brightened up the room and carried the colors throughout the space.  What do you think?

Since I’m all about the photo opp, I imagined getting a group shot with the girls all jumping on my couch with balloons in the air, waving them around like they just didn’t care…  and I loved when my vision came to life!

Balloons

Balloon garlands and installations if professionally done are super pricey.  But you can go the DIY route if you have a lot of patience and can spare some time (and by “some” I mean double the time you think it takes).  To stay within budget, I blew all these balloons up myself (bought wholesale), taped them to my mirror with packing tape, prayed they would stay on but still had to repeat this process 10x cuz so many popped or wouldn’t stay up, then added mirrored Christmas garland, and finally inserted silk flowers in between for a unique, girly look.  It was well worth the effort in the end, I think, don’t you?

It perfectly echoed the banner across the way and was a major conversation piece that night!

I also did a balloon makeover on an enormous balloon that I brought home one day from the Live Clean blogger brunch.  By adding my own coordinating pom pom string, tulle and paper garland, it became a one-of-a-kind photo prop!

Her feather crown can be purchased wholesale here.

Desserts

She mentioned she wanted sweets.  So I made and formed rice krispy stars, added frosting, gold glitter and a gold straw to create magic wands!

Pink rock candy sticks, jellybeans, and mini cupcakes also contributed to the sugar high.  And pink, gold and silver Hershey kisses hid in crown favor boxes while candy awaited our guests in the form of pretty pink purses.

Vendors

  • Happy Birthday sign is actually a cake topper that I bought wholesale here.
  • Crown favor boxes can be bought wholesale here
  • Pink purse favor boxes found wholesale here
  • The most royal of desserts however, was the princess cake!  Straight out of our dreams, was this glorious Barbie cake, dress, hat and present designed to match our party decor, from Baked by Tal.  AMAZING!

Besides giving the sweets the royal treatment, I picked out the prettiest princess-y paper goods that I could find while perfectly matching her color theme.  By printing, cutting and assembling on my own, I was able to cut costs as well.  The banner, cupcake toppers, invite, thank you card and other event signs and notes can be found here.

Menu

Tea party menu included: crown shaped PB&J princess sandwiches, 2 kinds of salad, pasta, chicken and rice, asparagus, fruit and of course, tea which I added pink edible rosebuds to.  Here’s a shot of the sandwiches that I cut using crown-shaped cookie cutters.

Gold glitter wall

If you want a picture -perfect party, you MUST think about pretty backdrops!  These princesses were expert posers and I knew I had to have a special spot for them to pick a prop and pose.  Here, I re-used my fold-up backdrop holder and created a shimmery backdrop with a friend’s borrowed gold linen, some pom pom, xmas trim and some leftover plastic tablecloth previously used at a past party.  Everything was simply taped on with packing tape on the back and cost me nothing ‘cuz I just used what I had.  It’s amazing what you can find for your party at the local dollar store!  The shredded pink tablecloth turned garland here was a dollar each and I hand-cut it.  The gold circle confetti was also from the dollar store and I filled my wholesale balloons at the dollar store with helium!

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Tablescape

For a sophisticated kids’ tablescape I mixed in paper plates with real plates, bought coordinating teacups on sale on ebay, and found the perfect pink, white and gold paper goods at wholesale prices! 

I really wanted a luxe linen but couldn’t afford the rental prices from my favorite linen supplier, Wildflower Linen so I made my own by buying wholesale, 1 yard of glittery mesh fabric from NY’s garment district and adding my own white ruffle trim.  I then sprinkled some diamond confetti pieces (found at Target) all over the table as shown here – majorly upgraded look from the usual child’s plastic table cover, right?

Of course, Juliet got to have her throne.  I found that Exceptional Party Rentals had some of the best throne selections with delivery to/from NYC.

Activities

For this princess tea party, our (hired) princess (and Juliet’s babysitter) gave individualized mini-makeovers giving each guest a turn on the throne.  The girls also got to design their own glass slipper, a craft involving stickers and these wholesale favor shoes.

And they enjoyed the shimmer and shine styling station and a “game of thrones” that I made up and had our resident princess lead.  (think musical chairs but with princess music, thrones, and princesses wearing tiaras)

styling station, pink princess party, plan princess party for toddlers

In the end, everyone had such a blast that they over-stayed by 2 more hours!  Nobody wanted the party to end, including me.  See my Instagram and Twitter for more details and videos!

Juliet is already talking about her next birthday party plans… she says it will be a Frozen themed party with 5 friends when she turns 5!

Click here for 15 fantastic Frozen party ideas!

© 2024 Stylishly Stella