"Coco" inspired party

*All pictures on this post were taken by AnnaLisa Banuelos Photography*

This party was featured in “Inspired by This”

There’s sometimes that you get a call from a new client and it all just clicks, you love the idea that they have and they like what you have to offer and the excitement starts to build up. That was exactly what happened this time. 

Camila, the birthday girl, is obsessed with the movie Coco and is also from Mexican descent, so her mom wanted to transform the backyard of her beautiful home in San Jose, CA into a Mexican Hacienda and the front yard into some fun activities for the kids, talk about amazing!

The front yard was super fun to create, the first thing the guests saw when coming in was this bright wooden welcome sign that told them where everything was, we decided to add a planter and faux flowers for some color and texture and to match the rest of the decor. 

Because we couldn't leave some of the characters out of it, we decided to go with very tall characters (they were about 6 ft with the planters!) inside of flower-filled planters, the effect was phenomenal!

There were a lot of kiddos at this party so we needed to entertain them, for that we did a few lawn games like knock the cans and pin the tail on the donkey. We also set up a craft table with pre-cut sugar skull masks and crayons, markers and glitter glue for them to decorate.

To add some more color into the front yard we added fringe to both garage doors with the words "fiesta" and "three". It was the perfect Mexican flair needed for this party. In between both doors, we had a small table with simple props for the guests to take pictures with.

In the backyard, we decided to put Papel Picado all over the open space to give it a cozy and colorful feel, which made the guest feel like they were in a faraway land in Mexico instead of NorCal.

We went with plastic Paper Picado (instead of tissue paper) because the party was at at the end of November and the possibility of rain was big (amazing decision on our part, since it rained up until 3 house before the party and we ended up tying them to some wet trees, tissue paper would’ve disintegrated) 

Camila's abuela likes to eat El Pato hot sauce, so she gathered the colorful cans for weeks and we transformed them into amazing centerpieces by just adding some succulents we also put a few colorful cacti because we couldn’t resist the cuteness! Paired with the striped table runners it was a winning combination. We also placed some maracas made in Mexico for the kids to play with. 

We wanted the dessert table to look like the ofrendas table that Mexicans use for Dia de los Muertos, that's why we added different levels and a striped table runner to cut through the middle. We also added pictures of the birthday girl with her friends and family throughout. To match the flowers we used in the front yard, we added silk flowers to a wooden milk crate and used another milk crate to hold a canister full of Mexican marzipan. The beautiful cake finished this look off.

We made a raw wood laser cut sign to give the dessert table a personalized look. Fun fact about this dessert table, the mom had ordered super cute rice krispie treats and pan dulce shaped cake pops, but she got a text an hour before the party that the baker’s daughter had Hand, foot and mouth and she had touched some of the desserts, so it was a no go. Thankfully, she had ordered 100 colorful cupcakes and an amazing cake and we made it work with what we had. 

Also, it bothers me every time I look at the pictures that the name is slightly tilted, I rearranged it before the party, but not the pictures…

For the kids’ tables, we wanted to have the same feel as the adult tables with the runners and centerpieces, for some nice touches, we also added personalized coloring pages and a colorful Camila sign next to the tables. 

Last, but not least, the party favors were small guitars that match the guitar in the movie. We put them in a cute basket with a sign to match the rest of the party.

I have to finish this post by thanking my amazing team that day, these girls got there at the crack of dawn working tirelessly for hours in the cold and rain to make this party happen! Thank you Aviva and Maribel, you’re awesome!

Party on!

Myri