Our Open House was 2-5 on a Sunday afternoon. That way we didn't feel obligated to serve a meal to save on money.
Ideas for inexpensive centerpieces. We did mason jars with baby's breath and a picture of my D at various ages on each jar. Plus her favorite candy [twix] mini bars on tables and chex mix she likes in cute jars.
We did a dessert table and a snack table.
Dessert. Sams club cupcakes are really good and are $15 for 30. I bought either 60 or 90 and made cookies, brownies and gooey cake. but not everyone is going to have a cupcake so to save money 60 fine. Otherwise Costco cakes are really good too and cheap. Had a couple jars of candy for pretty. Some do candy bars or ice cream bars but they get expensive.
For snacks... My D chose her favorite snacks. Chips Salsa Guac Cheese Crackers Fruits Veggies. I did a couple trays of nuggets from Chic Fil A [they were a hit] And outside I had a cooler with freezer pops cause why not.I was going to do cute fruit display like kebobs, etc. but ran out of time and energy. It's a lot of work. lol.
For Drinks we did big containers of lemonade, iced tea and water.
Truly people just graze. Some stay for a while and some go from one to the other. No one expects a meal so aren't planning on it. We had a great day and lots of space so people played various outdoor games [9 square, spike ball, Enos].
We went to many many parties and they were all variations of elaborate and simple.
My D loved her party. She was thrilled with the outcome.
I got the jars for tables @ Dollar Tree and made all the banners and signs. The favorite hit was the lifesize cut-outs of D at various ages lining the walk way [Hubby has printer at work and bought foam board and spray adhesive at Lowes].
And we had our party one of the last so we were given many items. The crate for cards. All the photo booth stuff, etc.
Here are some pics I took [sorry couldn't find one of the snacks table]. I meant to make the year with the cupcakes [2017] but it looked terrible. So I just did her initial and filled in as needed. If you do the numbers print them out to place cupcakes on so it looks good [pinterest].
https://www.flickr.com/gp/47691881@N02/94NL43