Let's talk about graduation parties

[Storygirl]

DD18 will be my first to graduate in May. She attends a small private Christian school. We are trying to work in advance on some graduation party planning, including figuring out how many people to reasonably invite, and whether we have the room to host it at our house.

If you had a party at your house, how many people did you invite? Did you prepare and serve the food yourself? Were you able to interact with guests yourself, or were you too busy in the kitchen and behind the scenes?

If you had a very socially motivated graduate who wanted to invite a ton of people, did you put a limit on that? How many guests is too many guests?

Did you have the party on the same day as the graduation ceremony? If so, did it make that day too hectic? We are trying to figure out what would be best for our out of town relatives, versus what would be most convenient for us as hosts.

Feel free to also share details that went well, what kind of food you served, and pitfalls to avoid. Thanks!

Edited February 7, 2020 by Storygirl

[Lori D.]

Congrats on your upcoming graduate! 😄 

We did an afternoon 2-3 hour open house. It was several days after the homeschool group graduation ceremony (mid week). We scheduled a weekend day to make it easy for relatives who worked to come, but also because there's no way we could have done it right after the formal graduation ceremony & reception (6pm-9pm). We invited maybe 2 dozen people -- relatives, family friends/neighbors, and friends of the graduate. For food, we kept it a simple (fruit bowl, veggie tray, a 6-foot sub sandwich cut into 24 sandwiches (ordered from the local grocery store), chips, and several types of cookies, and choice of beverages). It was buffet/serve yourself whenever you want, as the event was very casual come/go and standing around chatting. We "decorated" with the balloon bouquet and display board of photos that had been at the reception part of the formal graduation ceremony, plus laid out items from his high school career -- diploma, awards, varsity sports letter, etc. 

We put out our folding tables and chairs, and borrowed a folding table and chairs from our good friends/next door neighbors, so we had a total of 2 small folding tables and a dozen folding chairs, plus normal living room/dining room furniture. We had no out of town relatives attending.

DSs were not interested in large amounts of people or fancy gala celebration. This was just right.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Lori D.

[catz]

Most of the graduation parties we've gone to have kind of reflected the community they were in.  Some were very casual park/garage open houses.  Some were catered over the top felt like Stepford wives one upping the neighbors kind of events.  Some weren't a full meal and were maybe were like from 2 - 5 and just had appetizers and desserts and beverages.  I've been to brunch events from like 10-1 with donuts, pastries, fruit, yogurt, quiche.  I had a couple nieces who did that.  It was nice and fairly easy for them in terms of prep.  

I have never been to a graduation party that was on the same day as graduation.  I would think it be hard to other people in your community to come that day.  Like my own graduation party was several days after graduation and none of my out of town relatives went to the actual ceremony.  They did come to the open house though.  

If I had as social kid that wanted a larger event, I'd just scale what I could do.  Maybe lighter food, shorter event, or whatever. 

My oldest didn't want an open house.  We actually did a couple smaller scale things with him to celebrate with smaller groups.  Kid #2 might though.  

Edited February 7, 2020 by FuzzyCatz

[MysteryJen]

Here, a lot of friends do joint parties. 2 or 3 kids per party. The families rent out a park pavilion and share food/drinks, etc. I like that because it keeps the kids at fewer parties. Open houses are fine, too. Kids will party hop- dd2 and her friends went to 12 grad parties in a single day last year. They were all staggered- with different food offered- the kids had a blast and really it got everything over with easily. Most grad parties were on the day of graduation- it is held in the morning.

Dd2 hasn't decided what she wants to do yet- so we haven't planned much. Our house is super small- so a park (like we did for dd1) is easiest. 

One group of girls held a party the weekend before graduation and that worked nicely as well.

[HS Mom in NC]

My older two graduated from homeschooling the same year.  They had the option of a cap and gown ceremony and neither wanted to do that, so we hosted an open house for both of them over a 4 hour period of time.  If they had opted to participate in a ceremony it would've been a hard no from me for on a party the same day.  Friends and family were all local.  Neither my husband nor I am from a family culture that would travel to a graduation of any kind, so we weren't inviting out of town relatives. It would be considered unreasonable to expect someone, including grandparents, to travel for a graduation, so my situation is very different from yours.

We had their homeschool diplomas displayed along with an 11X14 professional senior photo of their choice.  They opted for an outdoor shoot.  We put a hard copy of each of the shoot in a nice photo album next to the diplomas in the standard hard case for guests to look at.

We did the food ourselves-finger foods. Much of it store bought along with a large graduation themed sheet cake.  We didn't order formal graduation announcements, we sent out pretty invitations for the graduation celebration. For temperature sensitive things I put some out and left some in the fridge to bring out later.  I focused on mostly things that weren't temperature sensitive since it was going to be a 4 hour time frame.

There's no way we could do much interacting with each and every guest.  My side of the family alone means a guest list of almost 30 people. Our house at the time was 3,000 sq. feet. Having probably 60+ invitees (just close extended family and close friends of our kids) worked out with the open house time frame for space issues, and it allowed our guests to drop in and leave quickly if they preferred that.  They had so many graduations to attend, I don't begrudge at all a token drop in, make nice for a few minutes, and go.   Some of them had 6+ graduation events to attend because they had friends and family graduating in the same year.  We intentionally had ours in early June because schools in our area had May graduations and so many people were swamped with them.

[Bambam]

We had a 2 hour graduation open house (2.5 hours for the next child). 

I did most of the food prep, but we did middle of the afternoon, so people were not expecting a meal.  I had fruit, cheese, crackers, mini cupcakes (for one, the other had petit fours), chicken salad (kept on ice), veggie tray (Sam's), stuff like that. We had iced tea (it is Texas!) and lemonade (bought bottles).

People came and people went as they had time. Some stayed the entire time, most didn't. 

We have a large foyer (probably 6 x 12) and we put a variety of pictures of her through the years on the walls for everyone to look through if they were interested. These were a big draw as many of the pictures included friends - so kids and parents enjoyed looking at those and remembering those times. I think I hung a 'Congratulations' banner in the breakfast area, but we aren't really big decorators, and I doubt anyone would have noticed them much anyway - people were more interested in visiting/chatting. 
 

[plansrme]

My social '16 graduate still talks about her party fondly, although at the time, she thought I was going a wee bit overboard with the decorations and planning.  We had it on a Saturday afternoon before graduation.  She coordinated times with her circle of friends so that her besties' parties were not right on top of hers.  We had tacos catered by Willy's  and made homemade milkshakes, and I had someone make a fancy cake with her soon-to-be-college's colors.  We displayed her graduation t-shirt quilt and decorated tables (inside and out) with her college's colors with some things I bought on etsy.  I spread everything out in the house, but the kids all congregated on the patio.  We set two tubs of cold soft drinks and water on the patio.

But back to the milkshakes--I  borrowed a vintage commercial milkshake mixer, bought extra mixing cups to fit it (Amazon), and rounded up dozens of small canning jars and a supply of smoothie straws.  I pre-scooped vanilla and chocolate ice cream and pre-crumbled the mix-ins.   Then I had 4 or 5 recipes displayed on a menu board.  We hired a neighbor kid to man the milkshake machine, but neighbor kid had the nerve to come down with strep on the day of the party.  His mom stepped in and made milkshakes non-stop for over 2 hours.  Kids lined up for milkshakes and second (and maybe third--they were mostly swimmers) milkshakes.  I ferried pre-scooped trays of ice cream from the basement freezer to the milkshake station, but otherwise, I was free to mingle with the guests.  Some of the kids still talk about milkshakes.  No one talks about the cake (which was lovely) or the Mexican food.  So, my advice is to go all-out on a fun dessert.  I loved her party and had a great time.  It was a fun mix of family, friends, coaches, swimmates and neighbors.  I placed no limit on invitees.  As it turned out, the real money was in the decorations, and that was going to be the same regardless of how many people we had.  We went to several of her friends' parties, and everyone did something a little differently, but we loved them all.  Well, except one, that was in a park, and everything was too spread out.  There was no party energy because we were all too far away from each other.

[Lecka]

I would do two parties if I had out-of-town guests come.  I would have that be one party, and probably invite other adult guests then.  And then have a separate party for friends.  

But we have issues in my family where relatives can feel slighted by children and teens.  It wouldn't work out to have a relative feel like the graduate spent most of the time with friends.  Unless we had a family meal or something that was just family and the party was presented as primarily being for "the young people to enjoy themselves."  

[lmrich]

Around here, everyone does a drop in. I honestly do not know how many attended but my guess is 50 - 75 throughout the afternoon. 

For this year's graduate we are going in with two other friends and renting a place (we have moved and the new house has terrible parking issues for that type of crowd) and expect about 100 throughout the evening. We will self-cater with reliance on Costco! 

[kbutton]

Open house parties are popular here, and it's usually picnic or finger food (but could include warm stuff like meatballs on a toothpick), cake, look at growing up pictures/awards, sit in the yard or around the house with the other guests from the social circle (church, scouts, whatever the connection is). It's not unusual in church circles to be passing people coming and going to the same set of parties, lol. 

I think in our old church, it was common for people to spread the parties over two weekends because it was a small enough church that "everyone" would be invited, and it would make people have to pick and choose if it was all one weekend. That church liked parties, in general, and I don't think anyone had big expectations of the hosts; they enjoyed having time to sit and talk and liked seeing the displays about the graduates. 🙂 Our current church is huge, so I think invites are more based on friendship and what Sunday School class or outside activities you participate in. I can see other groups (band kids, classmates, scouts, etc.) maybe trying to coordinate as well if the kids are close friends.

I think Lecka has a good point about two parties though with relatives if timing is an issue, or if you have a large family or friend group that would make a crowd all by themselves. For us, a family party would look more like a big dinner (but probably summer picnic food), and the kids would actually open presents and such while relatives looked on. The friend party would be more open-house and finger food with an inconspicuous place to put cards or gifts that people might bring (probably with a picture display or a guest book page for a scrapbook). 

A park shelter can be nice if you are not up for people in your home. We've done birthdays that way. I think you'd need to reserve a shelter quite in advance if party dates are grouped tightly in your social circle. 

If you want pictures of the event, and have friend that is good at being inconspicuous but friendly, you might ask that friend to take candid shots. As the hostess, it's hard to get pictures. I asked a friend to do this for a party once, and those are the nicest party pictures I've ever had. She is not a photographer, just good at putting people at ease. 

[Storygirl]

I like all of your creativity!

DD's ceremony will be at 10 am, so there would be time to have a party the same day. We have grandparents in their 80s and aunts and uncles who will drive in from 2 or more hours away. I need to take a poll with them to see who will be interested in attending the actual ceremony. Because it's a really small school, the ceremony is very personalized, with a lot of comments about each student by the staff, so it might be nice for relatives to attend, but some may not choose to. If they do, it seems to me that it would be better for them to make it a one-day affair and have the party that afternoon, so that they don't have to come on two different days.

But some of the other graduates will have their parties on that afternoon. DD would need to be present at her own party, which might mean that she would need to skip some of her friends', which she is not okay with, understandably. Someone already set their time for 2-5, I guess, which is what I was thinking we would do for ours.

It's a hard decision for me!

We could just have something on graduation day for family. If everyone comes, that would be 20-30 people, including us. I really doubt they would all come to the ceremony, though, and if I'm planning a party for that many, I kind of would rather not do it twice -- one for family and one for friends.

DD gave me her tentative list of people to invite:

Everyone from her school -- 26 individuals plus 9 families (don't know how many people in each family)

People from work -- 20

People from church -- 16 individuals and 6 families (not sure how many in each family)

Additional friends from dance -- 3

Counting family, we are somewhere over 100 people. That kind of freaks me out, to be honest.

I told her that I'm not sure that I can handle a party for that many people. It's a lot more than what I had in mind, and it doesn't even include non-family people that DH and I might like to invite. She said that one of her friends gave her mom a list of 150 people, and that mom told her that it was not enough, and that there were more people she needed to include, so I realize that everyone has different ideas about how many is too many.

It's her party, for her, so I hate to put some limits on. But it has to be reasonable for me, as well. I'm not sure what the balance is.

So this planning is hard for me to wrap my mind around.

[Storygirl]

I did suggest that she could leave off the work people. She works at Chick-fil-A. Last summer, the owner threw a little gathering for the people who were heading off to college, and I'm assuming that could happen again. I don't think she needs to celebrate with her work friends twice, but, of course, she doesn't want to leave them off of our list.

I have hosted 25ish people for holidays before. It was exhausting for me and DH. I would like to be able to feel celebratory about her graduation myself, instead of feeling overwhelmed by it.

But then I remind myself that it's not about me. But I am still the one who has to manage it all.

We could reserve a party room at a restaurant and have it catered, so that it would be less work for me, if we can't get the numbers down. But it would be so so expensive to do that for 100 plus people.

[Storygirl]

Oh, and that big list is what she came up with after I told her that she can't invite everyone she knows but needs to keep it to her closest friends. 🤨

[Storygirl]

I really think that only grandparents and perhaps a couple of aunts or uncles would come to the actual ceremony. We could just take them out to eat and have the party on another day. The reason that I hesitate about that is that I hate for them to have to make the drive twice -- once for the ceremony, and another time for the party a week later (or whenever). And they would want to come to both.

[Sneezyone]

4 hours ago, Storygirl said:

DD18 will be my first to graduate in May. She attends a small private Christian school. We are trying to work in advance on some graduation party planning, including figuring out how many people to reasonably invite, and whether we have the room to host it at our house.

If you had a party at your house, how many people did you invite? Did you prepare and serve the food yourself? Were you able to interact with guests yourself, or were you too busy in the kitchen and behind the scenes?

If you had a very socially motivated graduate who wanted to invite a ton of people, did you put a limit on that? How many guests is too many guests?

Did you have the party on the same day as the graduation ceremony? If so, did it make that day too hectic? We are trying to figure out what would be best for our out of town relatives, versus what would be most convenient for us as hosts.

Feel free to also share details that went well, what kind of food you served, and pitfalls to avoid. Thanks!

 

I haven't planned one yet but I'm lurking for ideas. My sister's party (15 years ago) was held at a local club in the afternoon after the graduation ceremony. The ceremony ended around lunchtime. There were about 50 guests. The venue could have accommodated more. The food was great and a few friends swung buy. Mostly, it was family. I don't recall a DJ but that would have been nice. My niece's graduation in June of last year was mostly family with a few friends. There were about 75 guests. Food was buffet style and there was a DJ. It was held in the hotel where we were all encouraged to stay as no one lived in that area. It was also on the same day as the graduation which ended around 7p. My ex-SIL did a nice job coordinating the festivities. There was a photog (nice gesture) too. Neither felt hectic to me but I wasn't the planner, lol. My current plan (most of our family and friends are out of state) is to do something similar. We have a clubhouse in our neighborhood so I intended to get a room there and invite our families and locals to join us for food, drinks, dancing and general merriment...probably 6 hours of fun.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Sneezyone

[HS Mom in NC]

22 minutes ago, Storygirl said:

Oh, and that big list is what she came up with after I told her that she can't invite everyone she knows but needs to keep it to her closest friends. 🤨

Maybe it's a personality thing.  Some people don't have a personality that distinguishes between degrees of friendship.  Or maybe she has a hard time saying no if she imagines someone being hurt because they weren't invited to yet another graduation party.  Maybe it's something else.  Either way, I advise you and other parents to give her a set amount of money (no changing the amount later) and a list of things you're willing to do that she can use to plan the guest list whether it's her birthday, graduation, college/adult education, or wedding.   We tell ours that we're willing to spend $X on their celebration/adult education, but they decide how they want to spend it.  More people on the guest list usually means less expensive options.  Fewer people on the guest list usually means more expensive options.  If what they want costs more than we give, it's up to them to make up the difference.  Some people just really struggle with being able to limit themselves, so they need external limits. The more practice they get the better they get at it. It's just real life.

[Sneezyone]

My DD is a kiddo who has a ton of tangental friends. As a cheerleader, she has even more tangental friends. She only has about 5 really good friends who know her well. I anticipate a lot of people wanting to attend her grad party. How do teens know what's a reasonable budget tho?

[Storygirl]

Oh, we definitely have personality differences 😂 . She's an extrovert, and I'm an introvert. I am frugal by nature, and she is.....not. I have one or two good friends, and she has dozens. And so on.

So her desires are not really going to match mine. Which makes it tricky when the party is for her, but I am planning it.

[Storygirl]

I don't mean to derail my own thread!

Throw out advice for me, if you have it.

But also, let's just discuss various ways to do graduation parties. Keep the ideas coming!

[Storygirl]

It's hard for me to choose a budget amount, since I don't have an idea yet about what things will cost. But it's a good idea. I think the biggest expense will be food, and the more people, the more food....

We won't have a sit down kind of meal. It would be an open house buffet style event. I think the more people that are invited, the more snack-like the food would need to be, instead of having more entree items. Both due to the cost factor and trying to streamline the replenishment of the buffet table.

[Sneezyone]

18 minutes ago, Storygirl said:

Oh, we definitely have personality differences 😂 . She's an extrovert, and I'm an introvert. I am frugal by nature, and she is.....not. I have one or two good friends, and she has dozens. And so on.

So her desires are not really going to match mine. Which makes it tricky when the party is for her, but I am planning it.

 

I like the (above) idea of doing a brunch pre-graduation if graduation is an evening event, maybe a low-key DJ or band with classic tunes for the old folks in attendance. That way it won't conflict with other kids' post-event dinners and family gatherings. The event itself tends to really drag. There were only 250 grads (or so) at my niece's graduation and it was interminable for my kids. DD's graduation will have 500+ graduates. I also like the thought that DH and I can just go home and sleep, LOL.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Sneezyone

[HS Mom in NC]

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

My DD is a kiddo who has a ton of tangental friends. As a cheerleader, she has even more tangental friends. She only has about 5 really good friends who know her well. I anticipate a lot of people wanting to attend her grad party. How do teens know what's a reasonable budget tho?

It's the parents' job to determine what a reasonable budget is, not the teen's job.  A reasonable budget is based on the parents' financial situation first and their values second.  Then they tell the teen the amount they're willing to contribute the amount of work/tasks they're willing to do.

[HS Mom in NC]

1 hour ago, Storygirl said:

Oh, we definitely have personality differences 😂 . She's an extrovert, and I'm an introvert. I am frugal by nature, and she is.....not. I have one or two good friends, and she has dozens. And so on.

So her desires are not really going to match mine. Which makes it tricky when the party is for her, but I am planning it.

That has nothing to do with setting the budget.  Budget isn't about desires, budget is about financial realities-hard numbers. You look at your finances and your values and tell her what you can afford.  That amount is what she has to work with and she's welcome to supplement with her own funds if she likes. 

[Sneezyone]

4 minutes ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

It's the parents' job to determine what a reasonable budget is, not the teen's job.  A reasonable budget is based on the parents' financial situation first and their values second.  Then they tell the teen the amount they're willing to contribute the amount of work/tasks they're willing to do.

What I meant was, even evaluating what we’d be willing to spend, DD wouldn’t know how to allocate those funds because she has neither the time nor the desire to price out the things involved. It’d be like asking her to plan a wedding. She doesn’t know what’s required. It’d be beyond her 18yo scope without tons of handholding at which point I might as well do it myself. I just don’t expect her to plan her own grad party. I could see giving her some options tho. The way we usually work things is, I say here are the options I recommend. She says yay, nay, or can I tweak something. We go from there. We have ‘team’ meetings about course planning each year. I foresee this being the same.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Sneezyone

[Storygirl]

1 hour ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

That has nothing to do with setting the budget.  Budget isn't about desires, budget is about financial realities-hard numbers. You look at your finances and your values and tell her what you can afford.  That amount is what she has to work with and she's welcome to supplement with her own funds if she likes. 

Yes, I can understand that approach, but it's not how we usually operate. I don't run a strict budget for spending; instead, I just am very frugal and spend as little as I can to achieve the results that we want. I would not assign myself a dollar amount budget, so I can't just kind of transfer a dollar amount to her in that way.

I'm sure for some families, offering a dollar value that the graduate can spend would be a great way to go. In our case, I will be making the purchasing decisions. I can share the process with her as I go, so that she can learn some things about how I make financial decisions. She does have a lot to learn, still, and she will get there, but she's not ready yet.

[RootAnn]

DH & I are big fans of having it somewhere other than your home with food someone else provides. The stress of cleaning, prepping, decorating, feeding, etc would be too much for me.

If catering at the restaurant is too much, how about borrowing the church hall/basement & getting food from someplace that is cheaper? (This option can be 1/2 to 2/3rds of the restaurant option from my experience.) Once I added up all my sweat equity & stress, it made sense to have my oldest DD's party somewhere other than our house.

[Storygirl]

Our church is too far for that to be an option for us (And I actually don't know if they allow private parties? Maybe? But I've never heard of one held there). But it can be a good option. DD's school is located within a church building, and I know that one of the students who attended that church had his party there last year.

Some people also have them at a park, which could be an option, if we want to risk the uncertainties of weather.

It will definitely be stressful for me to host it at our house, if we do that. It's one of the factors we need to consider.

[J-rap]

In our town, everyone has an open house.  They're sometimes held the weekend before graduation, but the majority are held the weekend of graduation.  If graduation is Sunday afternoon, open houses would be held Friday evening, anytime Saturday, or Sunday after graduation.  Most last for around 3 hours.  We always had ours on the Friday evening or Saturday before graduation.  

We'd send invite postcards to friends and relatives, and all of the graduate's friends.  The graduate can invite as many as they like.  We estimate the number who might come, knowing some won't eat anything and some won't come.  We always had food leftover.  

Most people hold it in their homes.  (Generally they're set up to have it part indoors, part outdoors.)  We held ours in the local coffee house where all of our kids worked which has a really nice outdoor courtyard.  For people who have it in their homes, they might have picnic tables/card tables set up outside, and some people set up tables in their garages.  Our town didn't hold over-the-top open houses.  They were all quite casual and homey.  Ours was generally an afternoon event, so we had finger foods.  We didn't make them ourselves, but either purchased them from the food distributor that provides for the coffee house, or the local grocery store, or even Sam's Club.  One year we ordered finger foods from a Middle Eastern restaurant out of town to supplement.  One year, we listed in the invite that it was for coffee, tea, and desserts.  We had desserts like brownie bites, and also fruit on skewers.  

The open houses in our town were also pretty traditional.  They kind of followed a formula I guess.  The parents and the graduate would always stand at the front door and greet everyone as they came in.  If no one else was coming in for awhile, then parents and graduate would walk around and mingle, but always head back to the door from time to time in case new guests are coming in. 

[mom2scouts]

When my older two graduated from public school the same year, we had an open house type party the day after the graduation ceremony. Those are very popular in our area and the students move from house to house. We had it at our house and friends came by for various amounts of time and family members usually stayed the whole time. We set out a table in the dining room with pizza, cake, and various snack foods like pretzels, chips, and fruit. Since it was a nice day and our house is small, some people ended up on the deck. 

DS will be my first homeschool graduate next year and I'm not sure what we'll do. He doesn't have a lot of same age friends. Most of the people he spends time with are adults so I'm not sure if that'll affect our plans. I may just invite local family for an at home graduation ceremony and then have an open house party and see who shows up.

[fairfarmhand]

My kid doesn’t necessarily want a family party. So she wants a party with friends here at home and maybe a light finger food reception here at home after the ceremony for family.

friend party will be a different day from graduation. She wants a campfire, s’mores, grillled burgers and hot dogs, and those floaty lantern things for our farm pond. Picnic, basically.

Edited February 8, 2020 by fairfarmhand

[KungFuPanda]

On 2/7/2020 at 1:16 PM, Storygirl said:

DD18 will be my first to graduate in May. She attends a small private Christian school. We are trying to work in advance on some graduation party planning, including figuring out how many people to reasonably invite, and whether we have the room to host it at our house.

If you had a party at your house, how many people did you invite? Did you prepare and serve the food yourself? Were you able to interact with guests yourself, or were you too busy in the kitchen and behind the scenes?

If you had a very socially motivated graduate who wanted to invite a ton of people, did you put a limit on that? How many guests is too many guests?

Did you have the party on the same day as the graduation ceremony? If so, did it make that day too hectic? We are trying to figure out what would be best for our out of town relatives, versus what would be most convenient for us as hosts.

Feel free to also share details that went well, what kind of food you served, and pitfalls to avoid. Thanks!

A friend does her graduation parties on the last day of school after school.  This seems perfect since nobody else seems to have a party planned that day and the kids can go straight from school to food and celebration.  She's talking about just getting a food truck for this last kid and doing it in her yard.

Edited February 8, 2020 by KungFuPanda

[iamonlyone]

Does your parks and rec department rent shelters (or better yet, enclosed buildings)? We have attended several graduation parties at shelters. People can eat indoors or out, and kids have fun playing in the park.

We had dd1 party at our home, but it was smaller. Ds grad party, we combined with a friend and had it at friend's house. Dd2 we hosted at our church. We had chocolate fountains for both the girls' parties. We purchased a chocolate fountain and then had lots of things to dip (pretzels, marshmallows, angel food cake, strawberries, etc.). We also had traditional sheet cake and some nuts. For younger daughter's we had sliders and salads, etc., but hers was immediately after the ceremony, and, again, we paired up with a friend, so we were responsible for all the sweets, and they did the finger foods.