Moulding the concept
We were contacted by a client of ours whom we’ve hosted other family celebrations for in the past, with the pleasure of hosting a joint 18th birthday for their daughter and the daughter’s best friend at school.
All the client knew was that they wanted spaces where they could allow the guests to have a black tie experience, up to 120 guests and that they would like to consider that the birthday girls would be wearing pink and all the guests would be in black formal wear.
This got us looking into how we could bring this to life with the design of the celebration. We secured a lovely venue that we’re used to working with and we set arrangements so that guests for the 18th could all enjoy being in the venue and feel they were all looked after, with a special security model that works to support 18th birthdays to ensure that all considerations for this age group are taken into account and that the venue feels confident hosting a large event for this age group, plus ensuring the guests are all well looked after and their needs considered at all times.
Bringing the bubbles to life
We looked at the time of year, colour scheme and age, and we created a theme called Blossom and Bubbles. Harrogate is well-known for its beautiful cherry blossoms and every year these girls have celebrated their birthdays with blossoms around, so what better way to celebrate than to bring the idea of blossoms into the balloon design.
We created an edible sweetie feast with a black and pink theme and built four giant blossom trees made out of balloons and trimmed with blossom foliage. We also made a giant martini glass in baby pink to sit at the head in the middle of their sweetie treat table which was the stage for their two birthday cakes.
Each birthday girl sent us their inspirations for their separate birthday cakes, and we weaved these into a design which allowed two similar-looking cakes to have their unique style. One had bows and one had roses, and the result was beautiful. They had their own flavours, and gluten-free options this became a really lovely offering allowing all guests to nibble away at the sweetie table all evening, and a great photo point.
Curating the event
As guests arrived down the red carpet they were greeted by a fizz reception with black and silver waiters. The DJ and set list was pre-arranged with the birthday girls' requests weaved into the DJ’s playlist. The venue had a noise curfew for the outside area allowing us to bring all the guests inside at 10 pm, the perfect time to sing Happy Birthday and allow a natural shift into full party mode.
It's really important to create these shifts in celebrations to keep guests engaged and the energy moving through the celebration. There’s always something new being revealed and people go away feeling that they’ve had the most memorable celebration they’ve ever been to. Plus the client gets to feel that they’ve really put on a great party, which is ultimately what they want to do.
They want to be able to celebrate with the people nearest and dearest to them, and want them to go away thinking ‘your party was amazing’.
If you don’t consider the journey of the guests and the entertainment and how little things come along to keep that engagement level up, then you run the risk of people not having the best time that they could have had. When people are engaged, they’re having fun.
We had a DJ change and then some dancing mirror men, which was a lovely way to weave in the pink, black and silver theme which cascaded through the whole celebration, from the main piece – the artwork of the cake, the centrepiece – which we then tie into the whole event. Again, it is the ceremony of the birthday where they come and make their wishes, and we make sure that the rest of the party and the celebration have elements of this cake design, which is always a masterpiece of art. In the trees, there were candle-held glitter balls as if glitter from the cake had cascaded off into the rest of the party.
18th birthdays can be a challenge – there are minors and the duty of care for venues can make it quite awkward to serve alcohol. However, with a really strong security team ensuring that everyone is really well looked after ensured that this event was really well received – if these things aren’t in place you run the risk of the event being closed down.
We also use the bubbles in the photograph design – balloon bubbles pouring into the giant glass where guests could explore magical little pots of pictures of memories of events over the past 18 years and allowed something fun for guests to engage with rather than simply sticking photos up on a wall. Plus, we also had a magic mirror there, which added to the event by giving people a nice, playful way that guests can break away from conversations and immerse themselves into the play of the celebration. Although this theme was very sophisticated and black tie, everybody still wanted to play, so providing guests with plenty of windows of opportunity to play during the evening ensured everyone had the best time.
For us at Enchantica’s, the joy is seeing the clients faces as they walk into the space that we’ve transformed, and seeing the guests as they arrive and take in the magic.
Special thanks also to party venue West Park for working with our ideas and allowing us to come in and create the magic, and to Brigitta Penzes Photography for capturing all those special moments to be enjoyed forever.
Get in touch
If you have an event, special occasion or celebration coming up and you’d to make it magical, please get in touch to arrange a call. We’d love to work with you to bring your event to life.