Joint Birthday Party for Cousins

I wouldn't be afraid to just lay it out. Something like....."Gifts are unnecessary, but if you would like to bring a gift, please only bring for the baby you know!"

Hi, D.:
The invitation would address that their will be a birthday party for your son and your niece.

Leave if up to the person whether they wish to bring one, two, or no gifts.

Thanks for asking. D.

I guess I would just wonder who you are inviting to a First Birthday other than family and some close friends? I would send a separate invitation for your child to friends, and just conversationally let them in on the scoop. If they are not good enough friends to do this with, I wonder if they should be invited? However, if it is a big neighborhood type of thing, I would consider having a separate get-together for that, aside from family. But honestly, that seems like overkill for a 1 year old (unless that is sort of the norm where you live). Just beware: if you get on that bandwagon now, you will be invited to every other neighborhood kid's birthday party forever more!

i'VE HAD JOINT BIRTHDAY PARTIES, COMMUNIONS ECT. sEND FAMILY THE INVITATION WITH BOTH KIDS NAMES. THEN ANY KIDS U INVITE SEND SEPERATE INVITATION AND THE KIDS THE OTHER COUSIN INVITES SEND GIFTS. yOUR CHILD WILL GET GIFTS FROM HIS FAM AND FRIENDS AND THE OTHER COSIN WILL GET HIS AND SOME PEOPLE WILL BUY FOR BOTH BECAUSE THEY WANT TO.

D.,

Is there a chance that many of the guests DO know both kids?

Personally I think it would be kind of cute to say something like:

"Gifts optional, but only for the KID you know".

Then people would get what you mean, but I suspect they would bring a little something for the other child anyway.

Blessings..

My daughter has often been invited to a birthday party for twins. She is only friendly or in class with one of them. The invitiations have sometimes been separate for each child and given that your children are not siblings I would suggest separate invitations except for joint family.

You might want to consider doing separate invites, except for family. The party is mostly for the adults at this age, so I wouldn't stress about it too much. The only place that it will be apparent is during the cake- two names or two cakes? Aside from that, the parents open the gifts- we did my son's the day after the party. It was very overstimulating having a huge group of people and the little guy fell sound asleep soon after the guests left.

I went to a joint 3rd bday party for cousins recently. The invitations actually didn't mention that it was a joint party for that very reason. When I got there and found out it was a joint party, it wasn't awkward at all. I don't think anyone felt uncomfortable for not knowing it was for both kids and probably were all happier not to have known in advance, as it may have made us feel obligated to bring a second gift (even if the invite said not to). So honestly, I don't think you need to mention it on the invite.

Don't mention it is a joint party on the invitation. Have seperate ones for each. Nobody will care when they get there and it is for 2 kids-it will be twice the fun!

Whatever you do don't talk about gifts on the invite-its tacky to do that.

My son shared his first birthday party with his (girl) cousin who turned 2. We sent an evite to everyone, the family members who we shared plus those who might have only known my son or her daughter. We did say that it was a birthday party for both of them ("Celebrate Geordan's first and Catherine's second birthdays!!!"), but we didn't say anything about gifts. No one felt like they had to buy for the child they did not know. People are going to do what they want to, anyway, whether they buy both kids gifts or not. Her in-laws even bought my son a gift card. They didn't have to and we didn't ask them to, but they did. I am sure you will find the same thing. We didn't have a theme b/c it is hard to do with a girl and boy party, but they each had their own birthday cakes and we took turns singing to each child. I had a banner made from Oriental Trading that said "Happy Birthday Geordan and Catherine," that way, if our guests didn't know it was for both kids, they knew it now! I think it was a great party and they will most likely share bday parties til they are old enough to decide what they want on their own. Hope that helped!

I had this same situation and my solution was to put both children's names on the invitation and then I personally added a post-it note on the invitations for my friends and family that would only know my daughter. On the post-it I explained who the other baby was and that we were having a joint birthday party. No one brought two birthday gifts!