My friend and I have sons who are 10 days apart and are planning to combine their birthday parties into one this year. We have many shared friends and we will both be inviting people coming for our specific child.
How would you word this on the invitation?
This is the start of our wording, which will be tweaked, but we don't know how to address the issues of having two kids (not related) and people not having to bring a gift for the child they don't know.
Round and Round and round we go
Where the fun stops no one knows
Please join us to celebrate
J & L are turning TWO!
Carousel rides, playgrounds, and games
TIA
Re: Shared Party Wording--Not Related
so the people who know both boys will bring 2 gifts, right? I think you should just come out and say something about gifts, as in "no gifts required," or "please do not bring more than 1 gift," or something, b/c to be honest, it's a little strange. If I was going to a b-day party for a kid I knew as well as a kid I didn't know, I would feel obligated to at least bring a little something for the other kid. So you might end up with people bringing a nice gift for the boy they know and an obligatory, crappy one, for the other boy.
where is the party? at a playground?
My sister and I have kids born on the same day, one year apart, so we do a joint b-day party.
We typically explain to people when they rsvp to please not bring a gift for the kid they don't know and most people comply.
We just had a joint party with a friend and we didn't mention gifts, but there seemed to be a corresponding number of gifts per child according to whose friends attended the party...which means people figured it out that they didn't have to bring a gift for both kids if they didn't know them. That said, when I attend joint parties I do bring two gifts...but they are either both small or one is a better gift and the other is just a nice little gesture.
I personally think mentioning anything other than 'no gifts necessary' or 'please, no gifts' is tacky, so we leave the gift wording out. HTH