Modern Traditional Korean First Birthday

My dear friend wanted a modern traditional Korean theme for her son's first birthday and we had plans to have this elaborate backdrop with a free-standing wall and all this decorations before we knew that the world was going to be turned upside down by one virus. My friend still wanted to have the party and decided to have it at their home just before Shelter-in-place was effective, but still only kept the party count to just family.
For the color scheme, I chose a powdered blue and cream with hints of grey and navy to reflect a modern tone. From there, I designed the signs, like the wall backdrop, the doljabi guessing signs, and even the framed signs with the birthday boy's face attached on the hanbok (traditional Korean clothing). Casa Costa Bake shop did an amazing job with the minimalistic yet elegant cake, and the cookies from Sweet Home Cookie co were so beautiful. I had wood accents scattered through the decor to help bring that traditional Korean look into the design, like the wood dowels on the backdrop, and the cake stand and cookie display board. I kept the backdrop signs very simple yet modern to create the modern traditional Korean look my friend desired. We combined all the decorative vases we had and used the ones we thought looked best as part of the decor. Overall, mom was very satisfied with how everything turned out in the end, dad was happy that his son chose the golf ball for his doljabi, and Levi was just excited to have extra sugar that day.
It certainly wasn't plan A (different location, bigger cake, longer table with more items displayed) and it wasn't as grand as we had all hoped it would be, but it was still very close to the original design and the birthday party turned out great! It just goes to show that creativity is not limited even with limited resources, and we were still able to have an adorable first birthday for Levi, given our current circumstances.

• Desserts

  birthday cake, cookies

• Activities / Games

  doljabi, cake smash

• Casa Costa Bake Shop

  Cake

• Sweet Home Cookie Co

  Cookies