Small Summer Dinner on a Tiny Budget

So recently it was my mom's birthday. We were supposed to throw a small party for her that included some of our closest family members and a couple of her dearest friends. I made invitations and even handed out a couple to some people. Long story short we did not end up having the party for my mom. There are many reasons and/or excuses but I think the biggest problem was that we did not have enough money at the end to make it happen.

So I decided to see how much it would cost me to decorate for a party. Now I know that everyone is different and the priorities are different when it comes down to planning a party. The most important things to me if I were to throw a party would be the food which includes drinks and dessert, music/entertainment, and last would definately be the decorations.

The reason for this post is to show or simply remind people including myself that you do not have to spend so much money to bring a party to live. I decided to go with the color yellow as my theme. The reason for that is because thankfully my dad has a bunch of really beautiful yellow flowers and white roses in his garden. So I took that as an opportunity to do this once and for all. That right away took some weight off my shoulders since I did not have to waste any money on flowers. Are flowers the most important thing when it comes to decorating for a party, well depends what your theme is and what mood you are going for. I have seen some gorgeous table settings and parties without flowers and trust me when I say that it is just as pretty.

Second I looked on amazon and thought that the second thing that makes a big impact when decorating on a budget is balloons. So I decided to get the cheapest nicest balloon garland making kit I could find. I found one for $9 and it had four different shades of yellow and in four sizes.

Third came the question wether to use plastic or regular plates, forks and glasses. I decided to use regular since I had bought one set of white plates with a gold rim around and another with lemons on them. On top of that we had some white plates that were given to us by my sister in law and my mom had a couple of bowl looking white plates. Luckily at the end we ended up having plates for 22 guests. We also had some regular forks and some new plastic ones to use. Now we did not have enough regular glasses so we ended up using plastic and styrofoam ones as well. Since I like doing table settings we had enough linen napkins. For the tablecloths luckily my mom owned two white lace ones and she owned a pair of yellow curtains. I took that curtain and used it as a tablecloth for the round table below.

One las t thing I think that paper garlands make a huge impact for a little bit of money. I made a couple paper garlands and they ended up making the small gathering finally become a party. At the end of the day I ended up using less than half of the balloons I had originally bought and ended up with this simple nice garland. I also ended up putting favors on one table to show how it would look if you are one of those hosts that like giving favors.

I did not end up wasting any money on decor besides those $9 dollars on Amazon for the balloons. Which now shows me and reminds me that next time I basically just need money for food and music/entertainment since decorating on basically no budget is possible.

It also looks good without all the dishes, glasses, forks and napkins. Which goes to show that you do not need all those things to make your table setting or party look good.