A year-and-a-half ago (how quickly time flies!) we welcomed our little daughter Lauren into the world. We held a swan themed welcome celebration for our new baby!
While I was still expecting I decided that I would like to do a “welcome to the world” (or “meet-and-greet”) after she was born. It felt like a great reason for a celebration (I got to plan something pink and girly…yay!) It also seemed like a good idea to schedule a time (that was convenient for us) for our friends and family to all come and meet her.
And so I began to plan my welcome celebration for a new baby…
I wanted to have the welcoming roughly a month after Lauren was born. This seemed like a good time frame to work with – it gave me enough time to recover after the birth. It was also great to settle into a bit of routine with her first before having guests over. Also, newborns tend to be nice and sleepy up until the 6 week mark, so I thought the timing worked out nicely. Lauren was a dream on the day. She slept through a lot of it and didn’t mind posing for photos and being held by everyone!
Because having a newborn in the house is always a very busy time – I made sure that I did a lot of the planning for the event before the time.
Planning a moodboard
I decided that I wanted to do a swan theme so started looking on Pinterest for some ideas. After brainstorming I put together a mood board for the feel that I wanted. I wanted the celebration to be pink, girly and ethereal – with touches of gold, silver and feathers.
Invitations
I ordered the invitations online, printed them at home and added gold foil myself ( I still want to write a post about that sometime…) You can always leave the date on your invitation to be filled in by hand later… This allows you to play with the timing of your celebration and see how life with a newborn goes first!
Thank you gifts / Party Favours
I also made up the thank you gifts and purchased the extra decor and accessories that I needed in advance. (I found some beautiful swan ornaments at a couple of my local Hospice Charity shops).
Food
Usually my mom and I do most (if not all!) of the catering ourselves – but this time I knew I wouldn’t have the time or energy to for this welcome celebration for a new baby. As a result, we ordered some delicious goodies in advance from one of my favourite local coffee shops. This meant that I had enough time to put in any special requests (like the extra embellishments on the meringues!) My mom still made some beautiful mini cupcakes to go inside the little swans that I had bought- thank you mom! We also coated some wafer biscuits in chocolate and gold sprinkles for our smaller guests.
Other (often overlooked) details for a welcome celebration for a new baby
Oh, and if you are thinking about booking a photographer to capture the memories for your event – don’t forget to book them well in advance!
Then, the week before the actual party, I confirmed with all of the service providers to check that everything was still on track and ready to go. I left my husband to buy some gorgeous flowers for me from the florist close to his work in Melrose (absolutely the best selection of flowers around, unless you can drive to the flower market yourself) – and voila! we were all set.
I was lucky enough to have most of my family around to help with the setup (my one sister came from Cape Town especially … (hand clap!👏 )) This was a real life saver, as the setup always takes longer then you anticipate and those extra pairs of hands make all the difference!
It was a beautiful afternoon and a wonderful way to welcome our daughter into the world and into our family – surrounded by friends, family and loved ones.
Hopefully these photos and memories of how loved and treasured she is will last her a lifetime..
How did you celebrate the arrival of your little ones?
Credits
- Food by The Victorian Secret
- Cake by Lezanne @ Glen Marais Super Spar (floral decoration by my talented sister and chocolate swan by moi ☺️ )
- Biscuits by Sugarlove cookies
- Invitation and party favour tag from Emma Smith
- Photography by Simoné Venter
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