
I cannot believe our sweet baby girl is one year old already! Wanted to share all the details of our intimate birthday celebration. The decor consisted of palms, pampas and little gold and bronze animals. Our nick name for Ellie is Monkey, so it was only fitting to have little monkey figurines on her cake and incorporate it into the theme.
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Throughout the house I incorporated palm stems, a few boxwood mats, natural pampas stems, and lots of palm leaf picks. I grabbed some tall vases and the bronze “Mom and Baby” monkey statue from At Home Stores.



I got all the palms, pampas and boxwood squares at Michael’s Stores. Overall, we went for a color scheme of green, gold, bronze, white, beige and blush.
Egg chair balloon arch by @poppincleveland



Poppin’ Cleveland went above and beyond on the balloon arch, which we decided would look nice draped on the egg chair on our back patio. I got the “Wild One” gold letters on Amazon and they incorporated them into the entire design.


I love how they added the palm leaves, animal print balloons and touch of color. Everyone was blown away when they walked out onto the patio and it was the perfect back drop for photos.
Back patio & bar cart decor




One of my favorite areas to decorate was the back patio, adding boxwood, palm leaves and a gold stand to our bar cart. I mixed in the palms and pampas in with our existing black lanterns and added a little mug that says “Stay Wild.” The “One” high chair banner was the finishing touch, perfect for her cake smash!




I also added in these little gold animals on the bar cart and tables. For the patio table, I kept it simple with one vase, our napkin and utensil holder, and my two tier tray for gold paper plates.
Cookies and cake by @alloccasionsbakery



It was our first time using All Occasions Bakery and they did a fantastic job with our cakes and personalized cookies. I got the little brass monkey figurines to put on the cakes and the “Wild One” cake topper on Amazon.




The smaller cake was a “smash cake” specifically for Ellie and the two-tier one was for the guests. The bakery arranged it all for us and made the cakes look perfect! The cookies turned out so cute with the little animal print designs and her name on them.
Menu and more details

Our food spread was done by my lovely mother-in-law Diane! She did a fantastic job putting together some delicious and well-loved food platters. The menu consisted of chicken salad croissants, cucumber sandwiches (by my sis), fruit kabobs, stuffed mushrooms (thanks Debbie!), pasta salad, shrimp cocktail, a veggie tray, olive tray and deviled eggs (and of course chips, dip etc.)


We used Wild One paper plates, napkins and cups for easy serving and clean up. I also snagged some gold appetizer plates from Target. A fun personalized touch we added was this monthly photo banner which we put on the fireplace!


I had fun designing the centerpiece on our kitchen table so that we could place the food all around it to make a nice display. It didn’t really take me long, I just used two boxwood squares on either side of the vase and added in palms and pampas all around and underneath so it looked like one seamless arrangement. I used a lot of these little palm pricks too.