Oh how I love birthdays...

So last week my good friend Kelly turned 30. The big THREE OH! She was actually in Croatia on holiday, so spent the day there, but my friends and I wanted to do something special for her when she got back. 

Whilst she was away we set to work planning...

Now, my full-time job is as a Media Planner, yet in my personal life planning does not come easy to me. I'm a little bit scatty you see!

I once planned a friend's birthday lunch; I booked the restaurant and then attempted to pre-book our food over the phone, using another restaurant's menu! The poor Waitress was very confused and kept telling me that they didn't sell 'four cheese gnocchi', but I insisted that they did. 10 minutes later she realised I was reeling off dishes from Bella Italia, not Strada and I had to apologise profusely and start the whole process again! Once the food was successfully ordered we all turned up expecting a lovely meal...except I'd forgotten to order the Birthday Girl's food. Needless to say, I am not the most reliable event organiser!

However, my friend Esen is extremely good at organising things (she organised her wedding this year which was the most amazing day!) and got the ball rolling. 

The plan was to have a girly high tea and birthday cake at my flat during the day, then head into Soho to meet friends for a nice dinner, and then onto some bars for cocktails and dancing. 

Phase 1: Operation birthday cake!

I love to bake. It's a fairly recent hobby of mine, and I try to make cakes for all of my friend's birthdays. But I like to experiment so never just make a simple sponge. For Kelly's birthday this year I decided to make a shoe box with a shoe alongside it, and I enlisted Esen's help to create said cake! We spent about 6 hours on Friday evening, mixing, tasting, baking and icing. My kitchen was a disaster zone! We finally finished at about 1am. This is the end result...

On Saturday we got up, made lots of cute finger sandwiches and put them on white plates along with lots of little cakes and scones. We also decorated my living room with balloons, birthday banners and lots of A3 sized photos of our friendship group. It looked amazing! 

At 3pm (it should have been 2pm, but I forgot to let Kelly know what time to arrive...I told you I'm hopeless at organising!) everyone came over and we had a lovely afternoon. 

During the week we had agonised over which restaurant to go for but finally decided on Aqua Nueva on Regent St. It's a stunning Spanish restaurant, with a roof terrace that has beautiful views of London. So at 8pm we descended on Central London, ready for the celebration to really begin! 

We met more friends at the restaurant and got stuck into some truly gorgeous food. We ordered a selection of tapas, and then some mains. I had pork loin; it was delicious! It was all washed down with lots of rosé champagne. At the end of the meal our waiter brought out a desert with candles in it and 'Happy Birthday Kelly' written in white chocolate on the rim of the plate. 

It was such a lovely day and Kelly really enjoyed herself. I have birthday blues now. Can't wait for the next one!!

～X～