Elle was born on a Friday evening. I don’t even think I realized what day it was, to be honest. I had gotten to the hospital the night before to be induced and had completely lost track of time, but for the seconds I was counting waiting for contractions to let up.

With our precious girl in tow, we made the drive home from the hospital on a Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday. It didn’t dawn on me that this was foreshadowing in a sense…but Super Bowl Sunday has been a big day for us, two years in a row now. Last year, it was the day she came home. This year, it was her first birthday and the date of her first birthday party.

I’ve been asked why I didn’t plan a Super Bowl/First Birthday party and do a dual celebration. Honestly, it didn’t dawn on me (this will come as no surprise to many…sports are more Michael’s thing than mine). When thinking about what the theme of Elle’s first birthday party would be, it struck me how just days after our sweet baby was born it felt as if we were living in a botanic-elle garden, since so many lovely friends and colleagues sent us flowers to celebrate. This was in the back of my mind as I was planning, and inspired most every part of the day.

From the floral wreath on her invitation designed by Inslee, an artist I’ve followed for years, to the flower crowns made by the first person I hired to be on my team at Spanx many moons ago (a renaissance woman who can truly do it all), to the build your own bouquet bar cart that’s still set up because I love it so, it was beyond thrilling to get to collaborate with an A-list of creatives to bring my vision to life.

I was also glad that this talented team was flexible since, as the story goes, our team, The Falcons, happened to make it to the Super Bowl.

While we ended up celebrating Elle’s first birthday a week late, the party was just as I envisioned: flowers everywhere, family and friends surrounding us and a cake table that I am still thinking about.

Here are some photos from the day, if you’d like to take a look! Special thanks to Mary Catherine and Heidi for tag-teaming the photos and Michelle and Jared for knocking the florals out of the park.

Do you go all out for birthday parties? I’ve always loved birthdays and wonder if other people do too!