Stevie’s “Fifth” Avenue!

Five years old. One whole hand… and an overabundance of birthday themes that we’ve seen used again and again and AGAIN. I was determined to think of something super original, a little bit nostalgic, and a LOT of fun! If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I absolutely adore throwing parties with a tight theme and this one was no exception! Read on for all the niche details and view the gallery to get inspired!

There are certain themes that hand you the no brainer details on a silver platter (like last year’s Target party… or Indie’s Wicked theme) but then there are others that leave a lot up to your imagination. This concept had so much to think about! I first envisioned how Stevie would look. I saw her dressed prim & proper (think Upper East Side private schoolgirl, Clueless, Gossip Girl, etc.) and instead of a tiny dog as her companion – she’d have her tiny CAT, Dottie – who was gifted to her back in August as an early fifth birthday surprise. It only felt obvious to include her, so I reached out to Jess at The Deerwood Company and said “how crazy would it be to drive my cat to your studio to be part of this photoshoot?!” Of course, she was all about it, and the deal was sealed. We were going for full Blair Waldorf. Sunnies, a (knockoff) Chanel bag, a pearl leash, bedazzled ballet flats… all surrounded by Tiffany boxes! At the very end of our shoot, we snuck outside into Jess’s red & white vintage car (that she uses for her Holiday shoots!) and we AI’ed it to be a NYC taxi! How cool is that!?

This shoot made the rest of the party planning SO EASY! I’ll start by saying that, much like Stevie’s previous birthday parties, the plan was to rent a tent, some tables & chairs, and have it in our yard… but the forecast showed increasingly bad weather that weekend and I was able to (miraculously) pivot just days before the event to Luxx Lab Event Suite – which is where we hosted Indie’s “Swiftie” Party earlier in the year! Having had a relationship with this venue before, they were able to accommodate me at the last minute and we alerted our guests. This actually turned out to be the best case scenario, because Luxx Lab has beautiful marble flooring, chandeliers, etc… which really lent itself to the overall theme. Along with the space, you get to use their tables & black chivari style chairs. I styled the tables in light pink scalloped tablecloths, using a roll of pearl beading down the center, some bud vases and a few bundles of Trader Joe’s flowers as accents. My signature party move is to frame a few of my favorites from the photoshoot and use them to decorate the tablescapes… so that happened along with a few extra little themey accents: NYC Skyline paper plates that I made on Zazzle, miniature taxis from Amazon, and the best – teeny tiny miniature luxury paper shopping bags!!! These were an Ebay find from someone who makes them for dollhouse collectors. I bought two packs and spread the bags around down all of the tables. Mini tiffany style cardboard boxes housed Hershey kisses, and a few baskets along the tables served pretzels – a NYC staple of course! On the dessert display I was also able to include some famous NYC “Black & White” cookies, and of course a copy of the invitation which was unapologetically “AI SLOP” – ha!!! I had ChatGPT create exactly what I wanted, down to a replica of Stevie’s outfit and… most importantly… Dottie the cat in a pearl collar. Where else was I going to find that!?

When it came to our focal point balloon arch, I hired the old faithful – Balloons By D! Daniella Delaney is truly an artist when it comes to party displays. She customized her arch backdrops with vinyl lettering and a city skyline, flanked by gorgeous balloons – in light pink, tiffany blue, and strands of white “pearls” – with my favorite accents: a taxi, a pretzel, and one very sassy “Lady Liberty.” It was super New York, super girly girl, super Fifth Ave… enhanced only by my own recreation of the cascade of Tiffany boxes that we had during the photoshoot. Extremely easy – just collect all the amazon boxes that come to your door (… I know you get tons of them!) and wrap them up! I also have to shout out the MVP’s… all of the chic women in my life that lent or donated their shopping bags to the cause! I crowdsourced and was able to gather Chanel, Gucci, Tiffany, Coach, Bloomingdales… lots of really nice luxury shopping bags that I stuffed with tissue paper and added to the display.

Ok, so the space looks great…. but what are 18 five year olds going to do for fun? Enter my friends at The Dainty Den! Located in Warren, The Dainty Den is actually a brick & mortar party space catering to all things girly, crafty and whimsical! I knew they’d be able to help me with an offsite event, so we dreamed up the best activity – teeshirt making, custom tote bags, and bedazzled sunglasses! Activity + Favor all in one! Hiring this company is worth every penny, because they also led the girls in a dance party to shake their sillies out, and an (attempted) runway walk to model their creations. I brought a bin of dress up props from home, along with some cracker jack plastic rings & pearls that each girl got to keep. The “runway” portion of the party was chaos, and totally could have used better execution on my part, but our tiny and very posh guests LOVED digging in the bin and dressing themselves up, at least!

In the far corner of the space was Sharalyn, a vendor that came to us from Prestigious Entertainment, to provide face painting and a bubble show! The kids obviously went wild for the bubbles, and she had a great personality. Many guests went totally rogue with their face painting requests (including my daughter who asked for Pokemon!) and she definitely delivered. After bubbles, we sang Happy Birthday and Stevie blew out a candle on her OUTRAGEOUS (and delicious) cake by Sweet Charlie’s Confections! I seriously LOVE how these cakes taste and I’ll say it over and over because it’s super tough to find legitimately good cake art that actually tastes good. The icing on top of a perfect NYC design (pun intended) was the hand made sculpture OF DOTTIE THE CAT COMING OUT OF A TIFFANY BOX!!!!!!!! I nearly fell on the ground. Gina Beltz, you have done it again! This cake was outrageous and I’m still eating slices of it nearly a week later.

So yes – princess and mermaid parties are awesome… but going out on a limb to execute a theme that might not be as obvious is SO much fun (for all)! And you can fully entertain kids while keeping within the niche theme and making the birthday girl happy, which is the most important part. I’m so grateful for every single vendor that helped to make this a success! Scroll through for a super fun party gallery chock full of visual details, and be sure to follow along on Instagram for the video footage in my latest reel!