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Fab Fete- Korean 1st Birthday Details on a Dohl

March 14, 2014
Fab Kids Parties

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 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)!

korean first birthday

korean dol

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!

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.
Skip the florals. They’re a luxury at a first birthday party and totally unnecessary.
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.
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.
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.
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:

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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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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Fab Fete- One Year Old Birthday Party Planning

March 5, 2014
Uncategorized

The first year birthday for a first child in the family marks a significant milestone not just for the child transitioning from infant to toddler stage but quite notably for the parents. It’s a time for reflection on how fast the baby grew, how quickly the year passed, and how your whole life has changed. Parenthood changes you. It changes your lifestyle, your priorities, and who you know yourself to be. And it challenges you to become more selfless than you have ever been before. It has been a whirlwind year for us with the new baby, new home and the constant moves for baby and me trying to avoid the renovation hazards. And we’ve come a long way, baby!

I knew I wanted to celebrate the first year birthday in a big way. We opted out of having a baby shower so this was a a celebration long overdue. Also, it is in Korean tradition that the first year is celebrated in a big fashion, akin to how we Americans might celebrate a sweet 16 or bar mitzvah. Plus, I’m a party planner at heart and by trade so planning this party was a creative outlet that I much looked forward to and enjoyed during the process.

It all started with the dress. Being obsessed with fashion, I wanted to find the cutest birthday dress for Juliet and actually started looking for it around month 5 or 6. After scouring the web and browsing literally hundreds of options online, I came across this adorable set from Mudpie. I loved the fun mix of polka dots and stripes and fell in love with the matching hat. Adorable, isn’t it??

And since I felt a birthday girl’s dress shouldn’t clash her party decor, the dress determined the party color theme and decor. If step 1 was finding the dress. Step 2 was finding an invite and party paper set to match. Between you and me, this search for birthday invites and countless, shameful hours of Pinterest “research” ignited the long-lost thrill of party planning that I feared was over now that I had left my event marketing/PR job post maternity leave. I giggled recalling how my event planning girlfriend and I once lamented the end of our weddings as we both experienced withdrawal because I felt I was now getting to re-live that sort of planning fun all over again. And indeed, we have not seen some of these invited guests since 2011 when I got married. So the first birthday was all that more exciting knowing I’d reunite with some family and friends after yet another life-changing milestone.

Onto the party paper. That Party Chick on Etsy sold the below invite and I knew it had so much potential to match the birthday dress and become the starting point for the entire event’s look and feel.

The colors were right, and it gave the graphic stripes and polka dot details on her dress an added complimentary floral pattern. Michelle Wise from That Party Chick was awesome at creating the requested matching custom: thank you cards, chocolate wrappers, signage, water bottle and favor stickers etc. I’d highly recommend her as she was quick to respond, and up for all challenges. Here is a sampling of items I had customized and designed with her help.

As a new mom without full-time help, you can imagine I was strapped for time and had to make sacrifices in order to finish all the DIY projects that I had on my party planning list. And there was a lot to be done if I wanted this party to look as professionally detailed as I wanted (but on a budget). Here is a sampling of my DIY todos and keep in mind I had to also set aside time to research best prices for supplies, buy them, print/cut them before creating any of the below:

Wrap 100 water bottles
Wrap 100 mini chocolates
Cut and create toothpick flags for sandwiches
Make (2) tulle table skirts
Make matching party hats for the little guests
Cut and place papers on platters for customized look
Make paper garlands for backdrop banner
Make tissue paper fringe for table borders, party hats and balloons
Create matching risers and presents

So out went any hopes of shedding the remaining pounds before this party. Work out? WHEN?! I was going to be lucky if I could sneak in a shower during my sparse free time. Also on hold was the preschool research that I had started. 6weeks before the party date, I had a one-woman crafting sweatshop to run! Thank you to the couple people who volunteered time to help me in my crafting craze! I couldn’t have finished the party hats or toothpicks without you! And thanks to my husband who let me take over the countertop pictured below to store and assemble! And thanks for letting me do my thing, even though you did wonder out loud how all this “junk” was going to turn into decor. Oh ye of little faith!

Possibly the most time consuming project of all though was the party’s guestbook. Since the day she was born, I had already recorded her rapid growth using the same Ugly Doll in each photo every week and only changing Juliet’s elaborately styled outfits. It wasn’t until after I had reviewed others’ Korean first birthday parties that I noted how people displayed (monthly) growth photos at a welcome table. They were usually in the form of framed photos or hung as a garland. As an event planner who has pretty much seen it all, I like to find creative ways of doing traditional things. So I added a twist to the usual and used my weekly growth photos which I already planned to turn into a book for Juliet and got double use out of it by turning it into a party guestbook. That way, guests could view the weekly fashion photo shoots I styled , enjoy the silly captions I made and record their presence for her with a personal party message. Shutterfly actually has a great template for guestbooks where you can add in pages that allow people to write their messages, predictions and sign-in.

It became a fun, interactive element to the party and gave guests something to talk about and do (there were 52 weeks of photos to browse after all!)

Other interactive elements that I incorporated into the party included:

coloring stations for the kids (easels and markers for the older ones, birthday templates and crayons for the younger ones)
enter to win -raffle associated with the Korean doljabi ceremony (more on that in my follow-up post)
roaming photographer took family photos and candids (photos will be emailed to all guests post party)

I believe in the importance of thinking of your guests’ experience. Here are some general party tips when planning your own party:

Ensure the atmosphere is welcoming and comfortable (enough seats for elderly, space to move between aisles/chairs, extra coat racks and hangers, specific directional information and reminders pre-party)
Consider the kids (have child-friendly drinks and snacks available, age-appropriate toys and activities)
Delight and surprise. Don’t give away all the details of what to expect and incorporate fun, creative elements whenever possible. For instance, I posted humorous developmental update signs throughout the party for guests to discover along the way (see below). And I played gangnam style when hosting the Korean traditional doljabi ceremony (also added Psy as one of the items Juliet could pick up and choose).