Lennox Mae’s 4th Birthday Mermaid Celebration
Denise Vasi
In my book, birthdays are one of the biggest blessings one can have. What a gift to be given another year of life. Naturally, that makes me the person who makes a big deal out of everyone’s birthday. It all goes back to when I turned ten, and my mother threw a party for me at school. I’ll never forget how special and celebrated I felt. My mother had the biggest most beautiful strawberry shortcake cake made for me with these gigantic bright red strawberries. Ever since then birthdays have been my jam.
Planning Lennox Mae’s birthday party is something I look forward to every year. Although we never know which city we’ll be in till literally right before her special day, we always seem to pull off something that makes her feel extra special. Thankfully our friends have become accustomed to our last minute planning and still somehow find a way to make time to celebrate our baby girl. Something we are genuinely grateful for.
This year Lennox Mae requested an all-girls mermaid party. At first, I tried to convince her that boys like mermaids too (this is a sweet book that we have about the topic) but then I realized how fun and empowering it would be for her to host her very first girl’s brunch! What a positive way to start implementing the idea of girls coming together and forming strong bonds. Who runs the world…? EXACTLY!
The Space
We hosted her party at a charming space called Festoon LA. Some of you might recognize the space from when I shot Midland’s #midlandgalsforchange campaign. What I love about Festoon is that it’s so incredibly flexible, you can turn it into anything your heart desires, but it’s not one of those spaces that is just a white box. It has the perfect amount of character to add to your vision. It works as a studio space for photo and video shoots but can also accommodate events like dinner parties, bridal celebrations, baby showers, workshops, and even 20 four-year-old dancing mermaids.
There’s a beautiful back kitchen for food prep and the sweetest bar on wheels that has these perfect delicate accents in blush, pink and maroon. And not to be a name dropper BUT the peeps behind Festoon are the incredibly talented gals behind 100 Layer Cake, my all-time favorite DIY event blog.
Decor
When it comes to decor, few can put things together as beautifully and as quickly as Fire and Creme. Their boutique is located in Venice and is the perfect one-stop-shop for all your ridiculously sweet party needs. They house everything from fancy party plates to party rentals that are perfectly sized for princes and princesses. They also have an incredibly talented team of artists who can customize anything. Owner Peggy North has great taste and can take any idea to the next level.
The girl’s brunch table was adorned with pastel finger starfish, shells and an array of goodies from award-winning partyware company Meri-Meri.
The girl’s names were engraved on driftwood. A mermaid designed to look like Lennox Mae was printed and turned into reusable placemats for guests to take home and the same sweet design was printed on party favor bags.
For favors, we chose swimming goggles and mermaid necklaces that we found while we were away during the Christmas break. Lennox Mae handpicked each necklace for each girl. She was very specific!
The Meri-Meri shell plates and napkins were perfect for a mermaid themed party.
Craft
I turned to Pinterest to research activities for the party and the one that seemed most appropriate for an indoor mermaid party was mermaid tail making. Peggy’s team crafted mermaid tails for the girls to design with sparkly gems and letters.
Mermaid Linden
Lennox Mae had a lot of decision making this year for her party, the one thing she was adamant about was a real-life mermaid.
Mermaid Linden has been a professional mermaid since 2005. She has a 15-year background in ocean conservation and education, is a PADI Master SCUBA Diver, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Film and Environmental Science. An incredible storyteller, Mermaid Linden entertained the girls by educating them about the ocean, playing games with them and giving them glittery mermaid tattoos. She even brought the birthday girl a very special present. The girls were literally in awe of her!
P.S. If you have a pool Mermaid Linden will swim at your party. How cool is that?
Cake
Every year we usually have two cakes. A theme appropriate traditional cake for our guests and a small vegan and gluten-free one for princess to enjoy. Well, this year she caught one and asked if we could have just one cake for everyone to eat, AKA “Mom, I want the pretty decorated cake.”
Anyone who has baked anything knows that gluten-free, let alone vegan baking is an entirely different skill set. The fact that it has to be on theme, beautifully made and taste good is a whole other challenge.
Enter Yvonne’s Vegan Kitchen. There isn’t much to say except that the cake was DELISH and from the photos, you can see that it was magically beautiful. We opted to go for a cake that was larger than what we needed because Lennox Mae really wanted her cake to have mermaid scales.
We also enjoyed vegan and gluten-free mini donuts.
Let’s Dance
Another special request from the birthday girl was a dance party with none other than BopTilYouDrop. BopTilYouDrop comes to your party, teaches your partygoers a dance routine to the birthday girl or boy’s song of choice and then the group of children perform the dance for their audience. AKA us parents. It is the absolute cutest, most fun and most engaging activity I’ve seen at a party in a long time (I borrowed this activity idea from another mama).
Lennox Mae chose the Four Season’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry” as the big performance song. She also requested Bob Marley, Drake’s “Kiki song,” and Migos be played at her party.
We obviously ixnayed the Migos. Ha! Ha!
A Day Fit For A Princess
What a party! It was everything she asked for and more. Looking back on these photos fills me with so much happiness. I can see in her eyes the awe, the excitement, the pure joy she is experiencing and that for me is priceless.
Thank you Festoon LA for allowing me to take over your space, to Fire and Creme for the incredible decor and coordinating everything to perfection. A very big thank you to all the incredible vendors who helped make my baby girl’s day extra special and last but certainly not least thank you to all the mamas who adjusted their schedules at a last minute’s notice to join us in celebrating Lennox Mae.
Time is one of the few things you can not buy, and you can not get back. Having you with us, making memories, is honestly the best gift of all! Thank you so much!!
