Parties from the Past: Princess Party for Two

My daughter Ellie and her cousin Lillian are only 6 weeks apart, so for their 4th birthday we decided to have a combined birthday. We chose a date in between both birthdays to have the party at Grandma's house. The girls wanted it to be a Princess Party. Grandma got busy doing what she does best and transformed the dining room into a Princesses Palace.


There was a Princess dressing room, with a rack of play clothes, a table full of jewelry and tiaras and of course a great big mirror to admire their new attire.

Grandma commissioned Grandpa into making a large kids sized table. It has been very useful in the many years since. No plastic tablecloth in this royal setting, Grandma decorated with real linens, fresh flowers, and silverware.

The invitation had instructed our guests to come dressed in their best princess attire, but we also had extra's just in case. After the guests had all arrived and transformed into princesses they sat down to work on their craft. I had found a set of photo frames shaped like a carriage. We had pre-sorted all the pieces into individual kits for each princess. While the girls were busy making their masterpieces, a special guest arrived. One of my recently married friends arrived dressed in her wedding gown to be our Princess.

When Princess Justine arrived the girls were so excited. We cleaned up their crafts and got ready for our snack. Then Princess Justine read them the "Princess and the Pea" while we served the girls snacks on Grandma's china.
We had a simple menu:

• finger sandwiches (PB & J cut into hearts)
• fruit tarts (mini graham cracker pie shells with strawberry yogurt and berries)
• fresh fruit

We even served the punch in champagne glasses!

When the girls finished eating we moved over to the sitting area to open gifts. Grandma had created two thrones buy covering two of the dining chairs with beautiful ivory chair covers and made a backdrop that attached to the window and draped down behind the chairs. Ellie and Lillian each sat on their throne and everyone was able to watch them open the gifts.

After gifts we let the girls play a little with the dress up stuff while we cleared the table and got ready for cake, I had baked each of the birthday girls their very own cake. While researching princess parties we had found this photo of the perfect cake on cake central:


Each cake was topped with a real tiara, and each of the birthday girl's got to blow out their own candles. The birthday girls had helped me make cupcakes for the guests the night before so that we didn't have to cut into their cakes right away. Each cupcake was topped with either a mini candy tiara or a princess wand.

All our princesses had a fabulous time, I only wish we had taken more photos!