Modern Hudson Valley New York Wedding and Family Photographer: Monroe New York Family Photographer l Mickey Mouse Birthday Party

As Family photographer sometimes is a challenge to take photographs of my own family. I think I have more images of many other kids and parents then my own. That is why for my son's 2 year birthday party, I said I would take the time to take some cool photos and plan a great Party.

When I started planning David's 2nd birthday party. Mickey Mouse was the obvious theme. I know what you are thinking --- Mickey? so not original...But I did not pick the theme, David did. He LOVES Mickey and his pals at the club house. That show is the reason he will stop crying. Every time the show is on, he get's super excited and you can see how his face lights up. All my life I've also been a huge Mickey Mouse and Disney fan, there I said it !

We can all agree that this is one of the most commercialize brands in the world.You can walk into any toy and party store and find some Mickey Mouse merchandise, so I challenged myself to do this party without buying to much of the " pre-design commercial stuff Disney had to offer.It would be easier a lot easier to do it that way, but I wanted to make it special, after all he will only turn 2 once :).

THE PLANNING

Started more like gathering inspiration from my Pinterest Mickey Mouse board. Pinterest is my new obsession and it has helped me gather so many fantastic ideas. If pinterest was around 6 years ago when I got married, my wedding would have been totally different. Now I'm using it for my photography and even home decoration. It is so much fun!

DECORATIONS

The Theme Colors were red, blue yellow,green and black and white polk a dots!.

Backdrop was:
Theme color balloons on each side
Little flags made of construction paper that I cut and hung myself.
A Mickey Mouse Pinata
I used Polk-a-dots wrapping paper as the table cloth plus a red table cloth I bought on wallmart.

Mickey and Mini Plates : Black plastic plates & black construction paper cut into circles glued with hot glue. For the bows red construction paper

Place cards: downloaded the Disney font from Disney Font to create food labels

Costume Birthday Board : Found the layout on pinterest. Downloaded the Disney Font and Mickey Mouse Font to create the fun costume birthday board.

Cool find: Wrapping paper!! is the coolest thing, I used it for a table cloth, paper lanterns and to warp place holders.

THE FOOD

One of my favorite finds was this Hot Dog Roller, everyone loved seeing the hog dogs roll around!!

Hot Diggity Dogs, Mickey pizza, chip & dale chip and dip...
Cake or cupcakes: vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and mickey mouse decor with oreos Mickey cup cake holder,

I ordered these fun straws from etsy. The kids LOVED them! (And honestly, so did I!)

THE FUN

PINATA

The only problem was that this pinata a bit too strong! All of the kids had 2 turns hitting the pinata, and eventually we let them pull the strings and everything feel down. (it's great for little ones) then they stomp, kick, and pull the candy out! They loved scrambling for the candy!

PHOTO BOOTH

I always try to set up a little area for a mini photo shoot to make it fun for guest to take pictures.As a back ground I'm using a Polk-a-dots wrapping paper again and tape it to a wall facing a big window to get the nice window light for the photos

The Budget:
A lot of stuff was DIY to keep the cost down, but with lack of time and not being super crafty, I found a great way to make it work. I contacted Jennifer Pagas from Every Season Events. She also does birthday parties and she created all the goody bags, Mickey ears, photo booth props, the party plates and all the materials under $50 whatt!!!??? That is why party planners are great, the save you time, money and from a world of stressful experiences.