Occasion guide No. 1
The Birthday Hat Bar Party
Birthdays are our most-booked private occasion, and for a simple reason: the hat is the activity, the favor, and the group photo all in one line item.
Time the bar around the cake, not the arrival
The instinct is to open the hat bar the moment guests walk in. Resist it. Birthday crowds trickle in over the first hour, and an early bar means your first five guests finish their hats before the party has a pulse. We recommend opening the bar 45–60 minutes in, running it through the middle of the party, and closing it before cake — so the candles get sung to a room full of people wearing their new caps. That photo is the whole point.
The guest-of-honor hat
Give the birthday guest something nobody else can build. Hosts do this two ways: a reserved premium cap in a colorway we pull from the wall (so it is visibly theirs), or a custom patch made ahead of time — a "40 & Fearless" mark, an inside joke, a year. Custom patch artwork needs about three weeks of lead, so mention it when you book.
Sizing the wall for birthday math
Birthday RSVPs run softer than weddings — plan hats for about 85% of invites, and we pad the order with overage so nobody gets last-pick leftovers. For a 40-person guest list, that means roughly 50 caps in three colorways. Leftover blanks go home with you, which many hosts turn into thank-you gifts for the people who helped set up.
Sweet sixteens and kid-adjacent parties
Teens move through the bar faster and pick louder patches — stock the menu accordingly. Our crew runs all pressing, so there is no hot-equipment worry with younger guests crowding the table. For sixteen candles specifically, chenille varsity letters and numbers are the runaway favorite.
- Open the bar mid-party, close it before cake
- Reserve a one-of-one cap or custom patch for the guest of honor
- Order hats for ~85% of the invite list; we add overage
- Two-hour bar suits parties of 25–50; add time past that