Choosing the perfect theme for a child’s birthday party can be a challenge for any parent. Today our featured party solves that dilemma for you in an absolutely beautiful way! Join me as we take a look at a birthday party built around a favorite childhood book that also honors the family’s heritage. This perfect combination results in a celebration the family will treasure for years to come. Keep scrolling for all this inspiration…
Lennon’s mom, Victoria Petrovsky, genius planner and designer, knew she wanted to host a party at home that honored her son’s heritage to celebrate his upcoming birthday. Ever since he was a baby, the family has been reading a page of Vashti Harrison’s Little Legends, Exceptional Men in Black History to him every night. Each evening before bedtime they focus on one individual and their accomplishments, believing that images are powerful, meaningful and help shape our identities. This book makes Lennon feel represented in a beautiful light.
Party Planning Tip: Is there a similar book that’s played an instrumental role in your family? A treasured story that’s been passed down through generations or is an all-star at bedtime? If so, consider using it as the theme for your child’s next party!
Little Legends Decor Ideas
Using the cover of the book as her inspiration, Victoria partnered with Moon Rising, an incredible artist and designer who helped recreate Lennon in the same style as the book characters. Using this new design, Modest Peach created a show stopping backdrop by recreating the cover with Lennon front and center! You’ll notice the rest of the decor followed the color palette of the book cover and featured blacks, whites, mints and yellow stars.
The party table was set right in front of the featured backdrop and decorated with wild, free flowing floral arrangements designed by Pavan Floral. Each place setting featured a black and white plate and cup topped with a custom made bookmark (featuring one of the book characters with the child’s name on the bottom) and a “Little Legends Library Card” to encourage guests to continue reading the rest of the book series, learning about exceptional historical figures.
An additional guest table was set up in the dining room, where guests could see the family’s personal portraits. With the focus and theme of this party on heritage, there’s no better decor than a wall full of family photos, right?!
Birthday Party Food & Drink Inspiration
Guests enjoyed a BBQ lunch catered by Sarah of Active Palate, featuring a stunning grazing table, BBQ chicken, potato salad and more. Little ones enjoyed mac and cheese and fried chicken sliders too! How adorable is that custom menu sign featuring Lennon’s darling character?
Now you know no birthday party is complete without desserts! And this dessert table did not disappoint! Beautifully styled by Victoria with a gold star banner, paper fans in mint and black, the sweet treats at this party, really command attention!
One end of the dessert table was grounded with an old school typewriter to tie into the book theme, which I absolutely love! Janice Wong provided a variety of desserts including custom cookies with each child’s name, as well as cookies featuring the book characters’ faces, mint and black and white donuts topped with gold stars and cake pops featuring the book cover.
And of course let’s talk about the perfectly coordinated cake Janice Wong designed too! The cake featured hand-painted book characters and was topped with a custom cake topper that read, “Lennon’s Little Legends.” The cookies featured the faces of the characters in the book and the cake pops had a printed image of the cover.
Little Legends Favors
Finally, in addition to the custom bookmarks each child received, the main party favor was a custom made library tote bag featuring the Little Legends book cover design. This is the perfect party favor – a sweet way to remember the celebration that’s sure to be used over and over again to help these little ones develop a love of reading!
I hope you loved all these sweet details and inspired, personal party theme as much as I did! Victoria’s hope was to help Lennon remember the day, recognize how extraordinary he is and inspire him to shoot for the stars. I think she accomplished her goal and I hope you’re inspired to do the same for your sweet little ones! Be sure to Pin this post for later Party Planning!
Featured Vendors
- Photography: Kara Coleen
- Party Planning & Design: Victoria Petrovsky
- Design and Decor: Modest Peach
- Floral Designer: Pavan Floral
- Catering: Active Palate
- Rentals: 3 Little Birds Event Planning
