People say Bengalis have বারো মাসে তেরো পার্বণ simply meaning no dearth of festivities in a year. We love to enjoy be it in Durga Puja or Christmas. So as the Fall or Autumn as we call it in different poles of the world is upon us lets wish all of you a Happy Fall season. It’s that time of the year when the temperature is not soaring nor you’re freezing to death. Everyone loves to go out enjoy the soft sun and spend good time. This season has it’s own color and magic. Guess what it’s the perfect time to dress up with family and click good memories. So we thought for a SURPRISE post this week, a Fall outfit and photo tips blog. Anyhow people keep asking me how do i manage to click our baby with perfect timing (follow him on Instagram ). Although there's no secret behind it but I'll elaborate on what helps me to catch him in his best mood. Actually this is the first Fall li’l K will actually be getting to enjoy by himself,  he was too tiny to get it last time. So if you have tiny tot like mine and want to take some good fall pics with the family, this would be a helpful read for you. Let’s get started!

Get outdoors

For fall pics the first thing you have to do is to get out in the open and pick a location. We picked our yearly visit to pumpkin patch for photographing this fall. It gives the quintessential fall vibes and pumpkins presents vibrant backdrop. It was a wonderful afternoon with us enjoying to our best soaking in the little warmth the season has left to us. 

Pick a color or theme for outfit

If you want a good group or family pic, coordinating the outfits is so much fun and synchronizes the pics together well. It may be a specific color or print or material like leather or fur etc. Me and li’l K chose the classic plaids for the theme. It gives a warm cozy fall vibe. For a tip I prefer outfit colors anything but orange to avoid clash with the background. 

Be comfortable in your outfit 

When you choose your outfits for yourself and your tot make sure you make note of the weather and comfort too. They look season appropriate as wearing a summer dress in a pumpkin patch won't look that good. Wear comfy shoes as you might have to run around your little, carry them or march through the field. I wore my maternity plaid shirt with a black mid length skirt and brown suede boots. K wore a matching white and blue plaid shirt with denims and brown boots. So our outfits looked bright enough for the pics and was extremely comfy. For people in warmer weather can wear appropriate cotton shirt and ones in colder areas can pair up a black pea coat with a stylish hat. 

Pick a convenient time of the day

Pick a time according to your little one's schedule so that they are well fed and had good naps. Also if you want perfect natural lighting usually pro's suggest that sunlight around 4 PM is the best for outdoor photography. So well plan your day accordingly.

Carry a snack 

Its difficult to shoot with kids and all the more when they are "hangry" so carry some snacks and water with you

Hire a Photographer or Ask Your Helpful Husband 

Candid pics of kids don't come well with selfies or tripods. So ask your husband or a friend to take some pics or yif you want some professional photos to keep you can hire a photographer. As in my case my husband is very happy to click pics of us than to pose 😶😶 so he took these cute pics of us at the farm.

Let the kid be on his own

Kids won't know how to pose so let them be on their own and let them enjoy their time. Its more important for them to have fun outside. They need not necessarily look at the camera every time. So relax, they are the cutest anyway.

Outfit Details

Mommy shirt: Old Navy Maternity section

Mommy Skirt: Kohl's

Son Shirt: Carters

Son Denim : Carters

One year ago, sweet baby K came into our lives. After a two day labor, he decided to reroute and greet the world via c-section. As Krishnum's first birthday approached we considered planning a family only event and keeping it simple. Then we realized, who are we kidding? We had successfully gotten our once-incredibly-fragile-baby to 12 months! So, it was definitely a reason to celebrate.Let's go all out!  

To let you know before you proceed further, I or we are not event planners or professional party organizers, am just a crafty nerd who wanted to have the most special party for her kiddo. So it was the first one of the kind and fun one for us, more so because we did most of the stuffs ourselves rather than outsourcing to any party planner or store bought ones. We learned a lot of stuffs on our way after several trial and errors. So thought of sharing some tips and how we arranged the party all by ourselves. Here are my tips for throwing a first-year birthday party with all of the most important ingredients: happy baby, stress-free parents, picture-perfect moments, and lots of style. The rest I jot them down for you! 

Deciding Theme and Venue:

From the time baby K was born I imagined a Krishna themed birthday with he dressed up as little Gopal. So had no doubts about the theme. We found an absolutely perfect venue, Casey Community Center. A beautiful historical dairy barn now converted to a community center, had the perfect mix of character and warmth. Couldn't have been a better palate for Krishnum's first birthday.

 

Background Decor

Lets come to the showstopper of the event. All our guests went ga-ga over the decor and wondered how came up with it.  The decor of this event was vibrant and sophisticated in our heads. One of my early inspirations for the party were the large scale gorgeous paper flowers I’ve seen that add such a fun 3-dimensional element to the space and set the tone for a stylish party and I just WANTED them for my K's birthday. I debated buying them but the huge price line made my decision easier. So I used my crafting skills and lots of YouTube screen time to make these flowers myself. Made them from colorful cardstock,  set them up on a cardboard with help of wires and my husband helped them to install them on the background stand. They turned out even better that I imagined and will be a decor piece that we can reuse in Krishnum’s room in the future. Krishna and his flute are synonymous so I also made a gigantic paper bansuri or flute from recycled poster holder. to be positioned in the center of the background. 

I would suggest if someone loves crafting like me, please do take up the task of creating decor items. But if you are not, a lots of options are available over amazon, etsy or ebay. This will save you from a lot of headache and stress.

The Dessert Table

The dessert table decor was kept very simple to not divert attention from the gorgeous background.. I up-cycled a diaper box and few tissue papers to make a 3-D "1" for the first birthday. Decorated the desserts on gold and silver stands to give some height. and  framed a cute pic of the birthday boy. We got the gold foil Happy Birthday balloons for K's actual birth date which was celebrated at home. So I attached them in front of the table for some shine and glamour. 

The Cake and The Desserts

The cake is first thing we always wish to match the theme of the party.The first thing you should do after choosing the theme is to think about the cake which matches to it. In our case, the cake and other desserts were local store bought (gasp!). We  didn't get a cake matching with the Krishna theme in our budget. So I for the first time tried chocolate model and made edible cake toppers looking like butter pots and flute. Attached a butter pot to the smash cake too.They turned out pretty good and had guest asking me where I got the customized cake!! My effort was worth. If you don't want to do modelling you can decorate store bought cakes with fresh flowers, chocolates. non-edible toppers or even buy edible toppers from etsy. 

Kids' Return Gifts

The ones like us who have never hosted a kids party underestimate the return gifts part. But trust me it was the most stressful one. Its best to give personalized gifts according to kids age in case  there is heterogeneous mix of them in the party. you can personalize these favor bags by decorating them as well according to your theme. We got gift boxes instead of bags and attached real peacock feathers (we got them here) on them with each kids name and thank you note. It was easy for us to distinguish the boxes and also fun for kids to find their own gifts. We did the same for the party hats we got for the kids.

Dress Code

Although this is not a necessary one for every theme that you choose. You can ofcourse let your party be a more relaxed  one by not mentioning a dress code. But we decided to go with the theme and dress up my little boy as little Krishna. So we got him a gorgeous sherwani from Amazon. I made him the peacock feather felt crown  myself to match the outfit and not to forget a paper bansuri or flute.

Me and Daddy K also wore ethnic outfits (click here to see my outfit post). We didn't go all out to be Yashoda or Vasudev, I think that would have looked too much dramatic 😝😝😝. We mentioned our guests to dress up in Indian outfits,  specially the kids. This was just for having fun and it wasn't a mandatory code.

Divide Duties

For the sake of your sanity, please do take help of your tribe on the day of the party. There are a million things to look after and you cant do it all! My family and friends came to rescue on the day of the event and I did divide the duties ahead of time so they knew what they had to do. For example, we had asked couple of friends and family to help us putting up the decor, looking after the food counter, taking pictures(very important!), bringing in food from the restaurant, and the last but not the least cleaning up after the party. If it not for the close friends and family we had here, the party couldn't have been a successful one.

Food

This is the part we took least stress for. we catered the food from outside, but made sure they were from tried and tested source. The adult menu was primarily bengali cuisine. All the guests enjoyed the food and gave amazing reviews as well. We also arranged for separate  kids menu so they feel extra special and can eat easily. Do plan to cook for guests only if you are confident you can and try recipes that you are good at, so that it doesn't go kaput on the final day.

I hope you found the tips useful. If you like the post please do like, comment and share it. Your words of encouragement keeps us going. Please do follow us on  Facebook and Instagram for latest updates on the blog.