The kids birthday party checklist
34 things, in the order to do them, from six weeks out to the week after. Ordered by when rather than by category — because “food, decorations, guests, entertainment” still leaves you working out for yourself what’s urgent, and that’s the hard part.
Print it and put it on the fridge, or have it generated for your party with your dates, your guest count and your budget filled in.
Six weeks out
Everything here is a booking, and the only ones that sell out are the ones you leave.
Pick the date, and check it against the school calendar
Term dates, long weekends and school holidays. A party in the first week of the holidays loses half the guest list to Queensland.
Decide the number before the guest list
The rough rule is the child's age plus one, up to about ten. Twenty-four children is a different party — different venue, different budget, different number of adults.
Book the venue, or commit to home
Play centres and party venues take bookings six to eight weeks ahead in term time. A council park or oval is usually free but often still needs a permit for a jumping castle or a marquee.
Book the entertainer, if you're having one
Face painters, magicians and animal handlers are booked out on Saturdays a month ahead. Ask to see their Working with Children Check before you pay a deposit — a professional will expect the question.
Set the budget now, in a number
Not 'a few hundred'. A number, before anything is bought.
Four weeks out
Invitations go out now. Earlier and people forget; later and the good weekends are gone.
Send the invitations
Include the finish time, not just the start. Parents plan their afternoon around it, and a party with no end time is one where three families are still there at six.
Ask about allergies on the invitation itself
Asking in the RSVP is the only way you find out in time to change the menu. Nut, dairy, egg and gluten are the four that come up.
Say whether parents are staying
Under about five, they stay — cater for them. Six and up, it's usually drop-off. Not saying leaves everyone guessing.
Order the cake, if you're buying one
A custom cake needs three to four weeks. A supermarket mud cake with something on top needs a trip to the shops.
Line up a second adult
Not optional above about twelve children. One adult runs the games, one deals with the child who has hurt their knee, and neither of them is the one taking photos.
Two weeks out
The point where the plan becomes specific. Numbers, times, and what happens if it rains.
Chase the RSVPs you haven't had
Assume roughly one in five never replies and one in ten who said yes won't come. Chase in a single message rather than one by one.
Write the timeline
Arrivals, first game, food, cake, last game, bags, pick-up. Cake at about the two-thirds mark — late enough to feel like the moment, early enough that nobody has melted down.
Plan for rain
For an outdoor party this is a real decision with a deadline, not a hope. Decide now what the indoor version is and when you'd call it.
Buy the non-perishables
Plates, cups, napkins, balloons, candles, party bags, prizes. All of it keeps, and none of it is worth a trip to the shops the day before.
Confirm the entertainer in writing
Time, address, how long they need to set up, and where to park.
The week before
Fresh food, final numbers, and getting the boring jobs off the morning of.
Get the final head count
Children and adults separately. They eat differently and they take up different amounts of room.
Do the food shop
Quantities from the final count, not the invited count. Twenty-four invited and eighteen coming is six wasted party bags and a lot of extra sausage rolls.
Fill the party bags
An hour, sat down, in front of something. Doing it on the morning is how it ends up being done badly at eleven at night.
Make anything that keeps
Jelly cups, biscuits, anything frozen. Two days ahead is fine and it takes the pressure off Saturday.
Charge everything and clear your phone
You'll take three hundred photos. A full phone at the cake is a very specific kind of annoying.
The day before
Everything that can be done now, so the morning is only food and children.
Blow up the balloons and hang the decorations
Set up the tables, and the space the games need
Cut the fruit and the veggie platters
Covered, in the fridge. Not the sandwiches — those go soggy.
Put the candles, matches and a knife somewhere you'll find them
Write the allergy list on a card and stick it to the fridge
Names and what they can't have, where anyone helping can see it. This is the one that matters most and the one most often carried in someone's head.
Charge the speaker and make the playlist
On the day
The order things actually happen in.
Make the sandwiches and put out the food an hour before
Covered until guests arrive, or the flies find it first.
Have something for the first fifteen minutes
Guests arrive across twenty minutes and the ones who came early have nothing to do. A craft or a colouring table fixes it entirely.
Tick guests off as they arrive
So you know who's here, who's still coming, and — at the end — who's been collected.
Cake at the two-thirds mark
Then bags at the door as they leave, not before, or they're opened and swapped and lost.
Ask someone to take a photo of you with your child
The parent who ran the party is missing from every photo of every party. Ask, out loud, early.
The week after
Twenty minutes that people remember for years.
Write the thank-yous
Within a week. A photo of your child with the present, and one line about the actual gift, is worth more than a printed card.
Share the photos with the parents who came
One link, once, rather than forty individual messages.
Write down what you'd change
Which game died, what you ran out of, what nobody touched. In a year you will remember none of it, and you'll be planning the same party again.
Or stop holding it in your head
Describe the party once and this checklist comes back with your dates on it, alongside the invitations, the RSVPs, a shopping list scaled to your guest count and a budget that adds up.
Plan your first party — free