Cinderella Party 4yr - Princess Table

For my daughter's 4th birthday she had a Princess Cinderella Party. 

The INVITATIONS were hard cardstock that I printed a very light picture of the castle on the front--then painted over the printing with glitter puffy paint--very extravagent; on the inside they read like Cinderella's invitation to the ball in very script font and everything spelled out (like a wedding invite)..."King Travis and Queen Rebecca request the honor of your presence at the Royal Ball to celebrate Audreyella's fourth birthday on Saturday, the twenty-eighth of May two thousand and five one o'clock in the afternoon party address..................Only Royal Princes and Royal Princesses in the kingdom are invited, All other must be accompanied by a prince or princess............All princesses are asked to be in their favorite princess attire.

Princesses over the age of two are to meet at King Ken's and Queen Jeanette's castle (my parent-in-laws, all of the invited kids were my daughter's cousins so it was their grandparents house) where they will be escorted to the Royal Ball by horse and coach (and coachman and footwoman (my brother-in-law has draft horses and a large wagon "carriage" and the kids were driven about 3 hours to the party).........Like all dreams, the magic must end...When the clock strikes 4 o'clock pm the spell will be broken"  Invites were only addressed to the kids (we have family parties where the adults bring their kids. 

I made my daughter a real (flower girl) Cinderella dress out of satin & tulle skirt; and bought her a real princess tiara and some fake but shiny jewelry (Claires), bracelet, necklace and clip-on earrings; and I put some shimmer eyeshadow on her and some glitter hairspray--this way she would be a little more dressed up and feel like a real princess.  I rented a small gathering room at the university near our house.  I bought some dollar store tableclothes and put one on the present table, one on the cake table, one on the food table and one for the "princesses table"--then I sprinkled some fake rose pedals on all the tables that my friend had given me from her wedding (walmart). 

On the door I made a large poster out of foam core board, and painted a large castle (same as from the invites) that said "Welcome to the Palace...Princes and Princesses only...all others must be accompanied by Royalty"; I had a picture of each child invited (7 princesses and 1 prince) and I basically morphed their face into one of the Disney princesses or prince--my daughter's being Cinderella of course--and I put that printout of the child in each of the castle windows. 

The cake was a 3 tiered cake (because the parents come too) of chocolate, vanilla & strawberry--the top tier was a bundt cake and I put a dollarstore barbie's upper torso in the hole of the bundt cake--decorated her upper half in frosting and the cakes looked like the barbie's gown--decorated like the dress my daughter was wearing.  I also bought some little individual bundt cakes (walmart) and some little cake topper ladies to give to each princess--so they got their own little princess cake. 

I wanted the food to be more extravegant like a wedding (yet still normal enough for a kid to eat).  I made stuffed mushrooms, toothpicks with fruit through them, bbq & regular chicken wings, a roasted vegetable chicken and tortellini dish, sliced bread & spread--everything was made the day before and reheated before the party.

While the adults finished eating the girls (ages 2-8) liked hiding under the tables because the tableclothes were so large--and they like picking up all of the fake rose pedals and throwing them up in the air. 

Then we had cake and opened presents. 

Finally, the princesses got to dance to a cd I burned (mostly with Cinderella & other Disney songs on it).  We had best spinner, best partner, etc. and they all won a prize (which was their take-home bag).  In each bag they got a burned cd of the songs from the party, some nail polish, a Disney princess pen, a sparkly notebook, a candy bracelet, a large sucker, sticker earrings (most everything from dollar store). 

Finally, we had my daughter run out the door as the clock began to strike--leaving her shoe behind.  It was a really great day, all went well--and all of the princesses loved it, especially the birthday girl.