Welcome Home Baby Party (instead of shower)
My sisters and my mom have been talking about having a baby shower for us for a while now. We asked that they wait until the TPR is signed. We didn't want the shower before that. (I don't have a problem with other people doing it beforehand; it just wasn't right for us.) Anyway, the more we talked about it, the more DH and I would kind of prefer to have a "Welcome Home" or "Meet the Baby" party for couples/children to attend as opposed to just the shower with the women in my family.
We don't expect our family to pay for all of this because obviously we're talking about extra people being invited. We asked if they would mind doing this type of party instead, and they were okay with it. So we would all kind of chip in for the event. We talked about it, and it seems like we'll have to either go to a restaurant or rent some hall space because we have a small house. And I would love to have a party in our backyard, but the TPR might not be signed until November. Too chilly outside!
Any suggestions? We need to keep the costs down to a minimum. Have any of you had this type of party instead of a shower?
Re: Welcome Home Baby Party (instead of shower)
Since I am not really in your situation, I am not sure if my idea will work. For my baby shower I also wanted guys & girls there. I did what I call an "open house" style party. We set like 4 hours for people to come by and visit. We had finger foods, sodas, and some alcohol for those that wanted it. People could come & go during those 4 hours as they wished. This also set the tone for no baby shower games. Everyone was pleased.
That may be an idea of what you are wanting.
Not sure where you are, but we did this in late Oct in California. It wasn't too bad here.
we're doing an "adoption celebration" after finalization. We plan to do it at our house. I've been planning far in advance to come up with some good ideas to cut costs. The only thing we plan on going expensive with is the food - we will have it catered. But even with the food, we are finding lower cost restaurants to choose from (but good food).
Is it possible the date will be close to the childs bday? Ours likely will be so the party will be a combined adoption celebration and birthday. That also cuts costs a LOT for us. We too also have two people who wanted to plan the shower so I am going to let them do decorations ...but I rather the rest of the $$ come from us as we would have spent it on her bday party anyway.
You are right up my alley! We are having our adoption celebration (exact words on the invite) on the 22nd. Mallory was born in April and we finalized on the 23rd of July. We knew that when/if our adoption finalized I didn't want a shower and we wanted it to be more focused on her joining our family. We originally called it a "meet and greet". We are having it in our backyard, but you're right, November = brrrr. What about the people who have offered to throw you a shower? Instead of decorations could they offer up one of their places? We e-mailed out our invites instead of mailing. I made an invite through a scrapbook program (or you can find a free website) that we used for our profile book and sent it as an attachment to everyone. Not sure if that will work for you, but it dropped our costs a ton (printing, stamps, envelopes, etc.)
What about scraping the decorations and opting for just balloons or something simple like that? I'm sure once people know you are throwing your big party they will offer to help too. What about asking someone to make a dish? Or cupcakes? Or a case of pop? Something along those lines.
Not sure if any of this helps, but good luck!
P.S. I follow your blog
Well, we were thinking of doing a Welcome Baby party, but changed our minds when we got so busy with a baby! LOL. Our family did a party that was basically a shower with everyone--men, kids, etc. My coworkers (I'm a teacher, like you) asked to do a shower, so I asked for it to be after TPR. It is next Sunday.
I think we are going to do a celebration the weekend after his adoption is finalized in November/December. We plan to have him baptized then as well so it can be a combo party. For that celebration, we will pay for everything--probably have it all catered and it will be at our house. I'm considering that our "gift" of thanks to our family for their support during our adoption process.
Hersheykiss - An open house style party might be a good option for us. That way everyone wouldn't be at the house (or wherever we had it) at the same time. I mentioned it to one of my sisters just a few minutes ago, and she thought it was a good idea, too.
MM Anon - I like the title, Adoption Celebration. That would be a nice way to word the invites. My mom mentioned looking into a caterer, too. You asked if the party is near the child's birthday; no, we're adopting a newborn, so he/she would be about 2 months old or so.
Mabella - I'm sure my cousins and friend could help a little bit with food, too, if we didn't go with a caterer. Good idea.
KmKaull - I know my coworkers want to do an actual baby shower, too. I also asked my one coworker to hold off until after the TPR. Makes me feel better to wait, even though I got really excited and wanted to say okay - have it now! - when she told me she wanted to handle it!
We had meet the baby in Jan. when she came for a month to stay with us. It was about two week after she arrived and we just had friends who helped with the adoption process and family. We had about 30 to 40 people of all ages.
We fixed soup for everyone I fixed white chili, ML fix chicken noodle, my mom fixed chili, and SIL fixed veg. soup. No one had a large expense and everyone was able to find something to eat. We did it at our church ans the kids were able to run around and play. DD was 18 months at the time and it worked good. The focus was on DD so we did not decorate.
We will have a huge BBQ if DD gets to come home while it is still warm and if not I thing we will do the soup supper again.
We are having a "sip and see" after we get home to introduce our baby to our friends. It'll be open house style, with so many hours set aside for people to drop by. These type of showers are real popular in the South. Worked out perfectly for us.
You could always do something like this at someone else's house, although it would probably be nice to do it there at your house so you can show off your nursery and also can have a place to put baby down comfortably.
Hope this helps,
Erica
Fredalina - I wish it would be warmer so that we could use a park pavillion! We have a couple really nice pavillions right near our house, but the weather/time of year...not so good.
GLynn - the Meet the Baby party sounds nice!
Erica - The Sip and See open house idea sounds like something we might be able to do...
I like the open house idea...but if you want to do it at a place...check out local senior living communities. Many have a clubhouse meeting space that they can rent out at a reasonable cost. Ask friends and family if anyone belongs to a club or lodge sort of thing...see if you can rent or use a space.
If not, choose a restaurant where you can have a whole room, order bunches of appetizers and pitchers of soda. You can keep it really simple even at a restaurant. Let them know your budget and they will help you stick to it. The restaurant already has decor and maybe in Nov. they will be decorated for Christmas or thanksgiving...so play off of that theme. "We are thankful for our new baby blessing..."
Let your friends help you organize this!
Rottimom - thanks for the ideas! I'll have to see if any other family/friends belong to any clubs - that's a good idea.
I like the "We are thankful" idea, too!
I don't think I have much new to add but thought I'd tell you what we did.?
H was born 4/20. My in-laws threw a meet and greet open house in their state for us on 7/5. It was casual with food. Their house is fairly small but we were able to use outside. They probably had 50 people but it was never too crowded as people came and went. My MIL specifically didn't call it a shower because so many people had already given us gifts and she thought they would feel like they had to bring another gift. Of course, everyone did.
7/19 - my folks through us a similar party in their home. Again it worked great.
We liked being at home so we could quickly go change him, feed him, whatever without being out at a restaurant and everyone wanted to hold him. Since babies are on their own schedules, it made it more flexible for us.?
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