Alden's First Birthday Bash, Mascot Hotel, Trivandrum

You may not remember the flavour of your first birthday cake, but you will always feel the warmth and love that your parents put into making it a special one. Here is one such an event which was held at Mascot Hotel, Trivandrum. It was Alden's First Birthday Bash.

Few weeks before the event, we had a session with Alden's grand parents and his mom. We started to brain storm with the ideas and themes. We put forward a couple of themes, both which we had done earlier and those we were interested in doing. We promised to keep the audience engaged and fully involved so that they won't get bored. In the meantime, Alden was listening to our discussion and started to make some sounds to grab our attention. Without hesitation, I took out my camera and started shooting our cute and happy little Alden.

Little Man was the theme that they finally decided, and we incorporated the theme into everything around. Blue and white were the colours that largely dominated the celebrations. The dessert table was simplistic, but beautiful. A large, two-tier cake stood at the center of the table. The cake featured elegant frosted decor as well as a cascade of pretty little boy clothing. To match the theme, cupcakes were creatively displayed on a miniature silver Ferris wheels. We had placed a photo of Alden which we took during discussion session near the cake and hanged a lot more images at the end of the hall where we had set a Photo Booth as well as a "Wishes and Messages" counter for the little one.

As we anticipated, there would be a lot of kids around, we decided not to do any LED light decorations and decided to stick blue and white balloons. We installed a balloon arch at the entrance and filled the room with nitrogen filled blue and white balloons. At the end of these balloons we stuck moustaches and bows to stick to our theme. We also ensured that all the tables had little man themed centrepieces filled with chocolates.

We were informed by Alden's grand dad that he was expecting a number of VIPs at the party and that we would have to make adjustments in our schedule according to their arrival. So we started the programme with a prayer and followed it with a video that Alden's mother had created. This was followed by a mini quiz based on the video, just to break the ice. This was soon followed by the cake cutting session. Luckily our little Alden did not make any fuss and was very much happy cutting his first birthday cake. The mouth watering cup cakes and sliced cakes were distributed to the guests.

In the meantime we moved on to most interesting session, games. We had two games for the kids, one game for couples, one game for adults and a thambola session. The first kid's game was "Who would moustache the baby". Here the kids were blindfolded and were asked to correctly stick moustaches on a baby's picture. Soon we had a winner and some grumpy faces who had not won. We assured them that we would be doing one more kids game and moved on to the couple's game. The game was " Basket the Ball", where one person would hold a basket and the other would try to correctly throw the ball into that basket. We ended up with two couples who were tied and the best part was that they were two generations of the same family. So after intense competition within the family , the younger couple became the winners.

Next we called upon the youngsters for a game, "Save your balloon". This one turned out to hilarious as it was funny to see each one jumping around the stage either to save their own balloon or to break the others. This was followed by out last kids game, "Grab your Pin". In this game bowling pins were arranged in a circle and the kids were told to stand in a circle around the pins. We played music and the kid who didn't pick a pin when the music stopped would be out. After this highly competitive game, the lunch counters were open. The sumptuous banquet was ever so filling and as people started to lazy around, we began our Thambola.What made Thambola interesting was that Alden's grand parents had announced cash prizes for the winners. 

The guests returned with specially designed return gifts and lovely memories of the beautiful event.

   

Alden's family with M. Vijayakumar,
The former Minister for Law in the Government of Kerala

Kadakampally Surendran,
a politician and a social worker
who is the current Minister for Co- Operation,
Tourism and Devaswom, Government of Kerala.

Mohammed Illias Sahadulla
Chairman and Managing Director, KIMS Healthcare Management Limited Physician

Event Venue: Mascot Hotel, Trivandrum
Food : Mascot Hotel, Trivandrum
Cake: Cake Bliss, Sasthamangalam, Thiruvananthapuram. Contact: 9447429366
Audio/Visual: Jobi Sound Works
Hall Decor & Arrangements : RD Creative Media Studio ( email: write2rahuldevakumar@gmail.com )

Hosting : RD Creative Media Studio ( email: write2rahuldevakumar@gmail.com )

*All the pictures were taken using Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 24-105 f4, 16-35 f4 and 50mm f1.4 lens with flash used were Canon Speedlite 430EX III.

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Rahul Devakumar

Creative Media Studio

We take photos as a return ticket to a moment otherwise gone.