So I recently celebrated my 21st birthday!!
The entire party preparation process was a rollercoaster ride, from being so excited to being utterly lazy and wanting to give up…
But it was all worth it and I managed to do it under a budget of 1k!! (Bc broke people things right?)
So I’m going to share my secrets here HEHEHE
1. VENUE 🏡
I think this was the biggest problem for me. I was expecting a party size of about 50-60 people and I really didn’t know how to fit the groups into one place without splurging on a venue for the party that lasted from evening to late. All venues online costed about 1688+ onwards which definitely already went way past the budget.
So if you’re like me and you share your birthday with every other person celebrating 人日 (renri) and can’t get a chalet, you can try sourcing for a friend that could lend you their BIG house for the night!
I borrowed my dad’s friend vacation home which was a town house in a condo! Unfortunately it was raining and my friends could not hang out outside on the deck, but thankfully there was still enough space in the house to hold everyone pHEW.
Chalets are the next best option but they still cost about 600-800 for a huge bungalow so be prepared to spend quite a bit on the venue if you can’t find a FOC one. Or you know, just uninvite some of your friends…? AHHAHAH
2. CAKE 🎂
OKAY I’m going to be honest about this one. It’s very hard to save on a nice cake. I’m not usually a cake person but when I do get to choose my cakes, I WILL CHOOSE A YUMMY CAKE AND EAT EVERY BITE OF IT.
I got my two-tiered cake from Aftersbakery. It was $320 for the cake in pistachio praline and dark chocolate hojicha (YUMZ), including delivery. I got it customised to my boho disco theme which is why it costs a little more for the cake decor… but what’s a birthday without a yummy and aesthetic cake??
If you’re not picky on aesthetics, you definitely can get a much cheaper cake to feed all your guests! I recommend Pine Gardens for their wide selection of flavours and size!!
3. FOOD AND DRINKS 🍽️
Very fortunate to have my helper to cook a small serving to feed my guests! She cooked a tray of beehoon and a tray of bacon aglio olio!! Then my mother decided to last minute add some curry.
I wanted to add on a sushi platter from Umi sushi, but they didn’t have it at the last minute (was looking at it weeks before) so we got some assorted sushi from NTUC.
Another cheap and good option would be PIZZA!! I guess it’s a blessing in disguise it was CNY and they had a lot of bundle deals so I got a 20pax pizza deal for about $100.
Then I got my sis to help bake some teacakes and got some fruits for the dessert table.
Drinks wise, I think I under estimated AHAHAH anyways I just got 1.5L bottled drinks from NTUC and left them in the fridge which was conveniently beside the dinning table SWEE. Got some beer (thanks to CNY they were selling in cartons for a good price also) and Somersby cider! Oh and a bottle of rose I completely forgot to pop open during cake cutting LOL
4. DECOR 🪩
One stop decor place: TAOBAO. But like I said, it was really quite a chore preparing for my birthday because I was getting busy with other things on the side so I had to scramble last minute on shopee. I spent about $60-70 and I think I got myself a pretty good deal with how the set up turned out tho 😀 (special thanks to my very artistic friends <3)
A dessert table was very out of the question given the budget, so I just filled it with my gifts and decided it was a good idea to also add on the fall outs from my backdrop. Oh and flowers from friends and those I found around the house.
Borrowed the GS table and the wooden basket from my friend too HEHE budget budget.
5. ACTIVITIES 🎲
Lucky or not it was a house with a TV and all so I could screen movies or shows from YouTube but my friends j ran a Kpop playlist the entire night so, works I guess.
And brought some cards bc what’s a CNY birthday party without some HUAT right AHAHAHHA.
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TLDR: throwing a party for a large group can be very very costly, but the key is to be RESOURCEFUL. Borrow from a friend, a friend’s friend, father’s friend (at their convinence) Or you could just invite less people?
HOPE YOUR NEXT PARTY WILL BE A SUCCESSFUL ONE
anyway
#BirthdayIdeas #21stbirthday #BirthdayCake #lifestylesg
