Party talk

[TrickyBob]

I mentioned in late September that my Mom was turning 60 and I wanted to throw her a party. As it turns out, I'm a dumbass and she turned 59, which gives me an entire year to plan a kickass 60th birthday party for her. (eta: I never threw a party, I realized later the next day she was only going to be 59)

However, I've never planned a party before besides my own wedding. 

How far in advance do I send out invitations? Her birthday is in October, do I aim for September or August? Her group of friends are typically busy people and I want to give them ample time to request off work/get their plans in order. 

How far in advance do I rent a venue? 

There won't be tons of people, maybe 25-30.

I know it's super early to think about it all but I need the entire year to plan this considering I will receive zero help from both of my brothers. Not that they aren't nice people but they just don't exactly care. 

I was thinking of a this is your life theme and requesting that people write down how they met my Mom and their favorite memory. I also want to redo some of her old albums into a scrapbook and make it the progression of her life. She is huge into scrapbooking and I want to finish it off with photos from the party and the letters from the guests. 

Food, simple stuff - sandwiches, cupcakes, cold sides, hot sides, etc. Soda, punch, water. 

My Mom does know about me wanting to throw a party because she is the one I have to ask for a list of friends and their addresses but she told me that she will try extra hard to forget I mentioned this by next year. Lol. I didn't tell her exact details. 

[VillainV]

The answer is always "it depends."

Are her friends coming in from out of town? Can you make the party on a weekend so people don't need to request time off work? I think 6-8 weeks is probably plenty of time for invitations, but you could probably get away with a little bit longer. Are you doing evites or actual paper invitations?

As for a venue, it depends on what kind of venue you're looking at. For 25-30, you could easily get by on a party room at a restaurant. Bonus is that that takes care of the food. I'd think of something kind of simple like Italian, Mexican, Italian, Thai, or whatever kind of food your mom likes. It will be a lot less expensive to have them cater something like that that they can do in bulk servings, rather than do some kind of prix-fixe menu at a fine dining restaurant.

If you want to do the food yourself, then you'd be looking at a non-restaurant/non-hotel like venue (because they probably won't let you bring in your own food). So maybe like a church fellowship hall, VFW, or if you're fancy then something like a vineyard's tasting room, brewery, gallery, museum/aquarium, someplace like that. To me, fancier venue = fancier food, so it could get expensive fast. I think you should start looking at venues in the next few months, and try to have something booked by maybe June or July at the latest. October isn't a huge month for weddings, but you might be in competition with some wedding events, especially if you're looking to do a Friday or Saturday (there may be overlap with rehearsal dinner-type venues).