Themed 18th birthday party invitations

Fifth of my "How to Plan a Filipino Debut" series

The first four parts of my "How to Plan a Filipino Debut" series contain the more technical (i.e. boring) steps in planning an eighteenth birthday party. Thankfully, we are all over that now and we may proceed with the more fun and creative chore of making the 18th birthday party invitations.

My experience with party planning began with making unique party invitations for friends and family for free. Luckily, my first set of clients loved my work enough to spread the word out about my little hobby turned income supplement. Next thing I know, I was not only creating unique birthday invitations but more than that, I was creating a unique birthday experience.

I personally designed, printed and assembled the 18th birthday party invitations for my two recent party planning projects. Because I choose to start off with the budget, time frame, and the party theme, and then present my ideas to the debutante, it becomes easy for me to churn out something good with just about anything without worrying about practical constraints because I already have them laid out before I start brainstorming for ideas. 

It now becomes easy for me to proceed with the design, materials and techniques to use based on the budget, time frame and the debutante's preferences. Here are my recent outputs.

Love Letter themed invitation card

This personalized invitation card was for Marielle Kate's "red romance" themed debut. The idea was to create something dreamy, nostalgic and shabby in a charming way, inspired by old letters and photos and other stuff you keep safe in a shoebox under your bed.

Paper

So I used Marielle Kate's favorite color red as the base color. I used Morocco board because they are cheap and available everywhere in the Philippines and they have the perfect scrapbook-ish texture. I had the board cut into 8" x 11" pieces which I folded in half crosswise; almost similar in size with most Hallmark greeting cards. (Remember them?)

Instead of using photo paper, I printed Marielle Kate's photos on plain white valium board because they absorb the vintage-y hues pretty well. As for the "letters" where the actual content of the invitation are printed, I used assorted pastel color linen papers, which I remember to be my favorite kind of stationery back in the 90's, so again, there's that nostalgic feels in it. 

Photos

I edited some of her photos taken from different contexts and angles to give them a dreamy, vintage appeal and make them look like old photos with torn edges using Photoshop CS5. I will try to create a tutorial some other time but what I did was based loosely on the combination of the following tutorials:

• "Old photo, vintage effect" by Alfoart Graphic & Web Design 
• "Star Diffusion" by Denny Tang of PHOTOSHOP TUTORIALS.ws
• "Breathtaking Dreamy Vintage Photoshop Tutorial" by i can be creative 
• "Retouch a Girl with Lighting Focus" by 9tuts 
• "Background Blur in Photoshop" by Digiretus 

Accents

Here's a paper rose I made using old gift wrappers

I used rose and damask patterns as the main elements for Marielle Kate's red romance themed debut. This has to reflect somehow in her invitation so I decided to print out a strip of a red damask texture I found online and craft a couple of paper roses for each invitation card which is really easy to do that I promise to make a step-by-step tutorial for it soon, too.

Content

The photos and accents were arranged in a symmetrical collage on the front cover of the invitation card. Inside are three pages of linen cut a few centimeters smaller than the surface of the folded card. The paper was watermarked with damask patterns. I use the font Champignon for its romantic drama. The font is downloadable for free. 

First page of the invitation contains the actual invitation letter which reads like this:

My dearest, 

It is a pleasure to invite you to my eighteenth birthday celebration on the twenty-fifth of August, the year two thousand and twelve at Casa de Via Resort, Calamba City, Laguna. Dinner program begins at eight o'clock. Please come in your best romantic red attire. 

Love always, 

Kate Blunt

The next two pages contain the list of entourage: Eighteen Roses, Eighteen Candles, Eighteen Thousand Bills, and Eighteen Treasures.

Dream travel themed invitation

For this "dream travel" inspired debut, the idea was to create a vintage postcard collage that contains elements of some of the debutante's 18 dream travel destinations.

Working on this one is much easier compared to the love letter themed invitation. Most of this are Photoshop jobs; the only actual crafting I did was cutting and pasting the actual postcard and the vintage stamps I made and printed on sheets of bond paper.

Front

On the front side of the postcard, I used two photos of the debutante as the focal point of the collage. I edited the photos to make them look vintage and warm. Then I placed stocked photos of travel related objects such as a vintage luggage with travel patches, a Pilipinas passport, and a compass. Other elements are landmarks and icons that represent the debutante's dream travel destinations.

I simply placed the elements around the debutante's photos and on top of each other in a scrapbook-ish fashion. The background was a curious blend of old world maps, water color floral paintings and space photos. It really was a Photoshop experiment and I am not sure if I could still make a tutorial out of it. I finished it up with a cutout typography that says "around the world in one night".

Back 
The back of the vintage postcard looks like the back of an actual vintage postcard. It contains the invitation on the left panel and the names of the invited guests on the bottom right panel where you usually put the address of the recipient of the postcard. I pasted one of the assorted stamps I created using Photoshop on the top right corner. 

Here's how it looks:

Simple isn't it? I bet you can design the 18th birthday party invitations for the Filipino debut you are planning but if you are not confident with your skills yet, you can always outsource the job to someone else.

There are those that offer custom invitations online but I personally advice you to oversee the creative process as some of these guys simply use ready-made invitation templates. Explain to them the theme of the party and some of the ideas you have in mind. You are, after all, merely looking for someone to execute your creative ideas. You should not compromise your vision.

If you are from the Philippines, I can make themed 18th birthday party invitations for you! Just leave a comment or fill out the contact form.

8 steps in setting a budget for a Filipino debut

Fourth of my "How to Plan a Debut" series

Now that you have set a reasonable time frame for planning a Filipino debut, the next step is to talk to the celebrant about the cost of the whole event. There are at least two ways to accomplish this: one is by giving the celebrant a quotation based on the debut party theme and their preferences; and the second one is by asking the celebrant's family outright how much they are willing to spend. 

I prefer to do the costing and canvassing based on a budget ceiling set by the celebrant. It is easy because you already know about your number one limitation when choosing the debut venue, cake, entertainment, materials and supplies.   

If money is not a problem then you can freely create a budget plan on your own. As we have learned in the previous parts of this tutorial, there is no one version of the Filipino debut. There are traditional ways of celebrating and program staples such as lighting the 18 debut candles but the cost would depend more on the debut party theme you are preparing for. It is important to always go back to the results of the brainstorming stage of the party planning.

Here are the steps to planning a budget for a Filipino debut.

STEP 1: Lay down all aspects of the debut based on your talks with the celebrant. A typical Filipino 18th birthday package includes the following: 

- Invitations
- Venue and setup, guest accommodations
- Gown/dress
- Food and catering
- Cake
- Programme and entertainment
- Souvenirs 

STEP 2: Determine the specifics for each item and create a checklist of the supplies and bookings that you need. 

STEP 3: Find at least three suppliers and ask for quotations. You may do an internet search for suppliers but the best source still are word-of-mouth recommendations. Also, try to find suppliers nearest to your zip code for easy transaction. 

STEP 5: Choose the best suppliers and create your package.

STEP 6: Present your package to the celebrant and be ready for any changes. Do not ever close a booking without the celebrant's go signal.   

STEP 7: Once approved, ask for at least 50 percent of the cost so you could proceed with the bookings and purchase orders.

STEP 8: Book and order. Do not forget the receipts.

If you think that's way too boring of a chore, well, you are partly right. But at least you have the step over and done with before you proceed to the more exciting and creative parts of planning a debut. The next part of this "How to Plan a Filipino debut" tutorial series will zoom in on these parts.

Setting a timeframe for a Filipino debut

Third part of my "How to Plan a Debut" series

The amount of time you have organizing a Filipino debut matters. Some great ideas are ruined because there is not enough time to execute them. But it is hard to determine how much time you need to plan a successful eighteenth birthday party because it would all depend on your vision of how the party should be like. 

As a baseline, one month should be enough to prepare a simple event that a Filipino debutante would appreciate while two months would be the perfect timeframe. Of course, having more time for preparation is always better but having less is not a reason to back out either. Like I said, it would all depend on the kind of party you came up with so it would be wise to consider the amount of time you have during the brainstorming stage of preparation.

Here is a weekly checklist of what should be accomplished in a 4-week timeframe to prepare a Filipino debut.

WEEK 1

- Brainstorm theme and motif
- Set the date
- Make the guest list and invitation
- Book venue and guest accommodations (if needed), cake, gown, and catering

WEEK 2

- Distribute invitation- Make the programme
- Book logistics (souvenirs, flowers, sound system, projectors, etc) and entertainment

WEEK 3

- Cotillion and program rehearsals (if any) 
- Shop for other materials
- Follow up on bookings

WEEK 4

- Set up the venue
- Settle payments
- Troubleshoot