Unique First Birthday Party Ideas for Boys: 10 Themes + Invites
The past year has been full of firsts — from rolling over and crawling to his first smile and laugh. And now it’s time for another one: your son’s first birthday. You want to host a celebration with friends and family that captures all the joy, love, and fun of his first year.
To help with your party planning, we’ve compiled a list of unique first birthday party ideas for boys. Use these 10 first birthday themes and matching invitations to inspire your party decor, activities, and food.
1. Level One Complete
Design: Christie Garcia Creative
Matching Invite: Gaming Essentials Invitation
Celebrate your little one’s first year with a video game birthday bash. This is the perfect party theme when the parents are gamers or the guest list includes older kids (and kids at heart).
Instead of party games, set up a few video game systems and have competitions between guests — either for prizes or bragging rights. Mario Kart and Mario Party are perfect for multiple players of all ages.
If you want to take this theme in a more retro direction, use 8-bit styled decor and pixel art cupcake toppers. Instead of competing on modern gaming consoles, set up old-school systems like Atari, the original NES, or a Sega Genesis.
2. First Trip Around the Sun
Design: Patrice Horvath Design
Matching Invite: Planets Invitation
Plan the party around a space theme, and your baby’s first birthday will be out of this world! Decorate with planet cutouts, twinkle lights, and glow-in-the-dark star stickers, and place printable space games on the tables.
In addition to your party food spread, offer packets of freeze-dried space food for guests to try. It’s especially fun for older kids that are curious about what astronauts eat.
Instead of focusing on space, the First Trip Around the Sun birthday theme can also take on a vibrant, sunshiny, summery vibe.
3. One Sweet Boy
Design: Annie Montgomery Design
Matching Invite: Gumball Machine Invitation
This delicious birthday party idea celebrates how sweet your little one is. You can choose which direction you want to take this theme — from Wonka’s chocolate factory or Candyland to a classic candy shop.
Brightly colored streamers and balloons, mini gumball machines as centerpieces, and striped tablecloths are just some of the birthday decor ideas that fit this theme.
For an activity, you can fill up a mason jar with candy — like M&M’s, jelly beans, or Jolly Ranchers — and ask guests to guess how many pieces are in the jar. The winner gets a prize and the jar of candy. Fill multiple jars with a different type of candy in each if you want to award more than one winner.
Alongside the birthday cake, have an ice cream sundae bar with a variety of candy toppings.
4. One for the Books
Design: Holly Whitcomb
Matching Invite: Hungry Little One Invitation
Does your baby boy love to snuggle up while you read storybooks to him? Throw a book-themed first birthday party!
Choose a popular child’s book — like “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” — for your decor inspiration or use a more general book theme. Ask guests to bring the birthday boy a storybook to treasure instead of a card.
Want a fun party activity that matches the theme? Play children’s book trivia and give the winner a gift card to a local bookshop.
For a party favor, hand out little bags of gummy “bookworms” and custom bookmarks to commemorate the day.
5. Picture-Perfect Milestone
Design: Signature Greenvelope
Matching Invite: 1 Milestone Collage Invitation
For a first birthday theme with sentimental vibes, decorate the party space with photos from the past year. You and your guests will enjoy reminiscing about all the special moments that have led up to this milestone.
For the party decorations, create Polaroid photo garland to hang on the walls or to use as bunting along the gift table.
Put out disposable cameras, and ask everyone to help make the day more memorable by capturing moments throughout the day. After you’ve had the pictures developed, send a few photos to each guest as a keepsake.
You can also use this birthday as a stepping stone toward a future milestone. In lieu of birthday cards, ask family and friends to write notes to your baby boy. Then, place them in a time capsule to be opened on his 18th birthday.
6. First Bee-Day
Design: Claudia Owen
Matching Invite: Bee Our Guest Invitation
Your one-year-old’s bday celebration will be extra sweet with a bee-day theme. Decorate with party supplies in a yellow, black, and white color scheme. Think plates, napkins, a balloon garland, and bee-shaped cutouts.
This is a perfect fit for a first birthday party in the spring or summer, and for the party favor, you can give out small jars of local honey with a wooden honey dipper.
7. Rookie of the Year
Design: Elizabeth Silver
Matching Invite: Sports Fan Invitation
Your little boy will be the star of this sports-themed birthday celebration. You can have a more general, multi-sport theme, or you can choose a specific team or sport, like baseball, basketball, or hockey.
Make or order a smash cake that’s decorated to match the sport of your choice, and then serve cupcakes with coordinating toppers.
For a fun activity, have a three-point competition with an indoor basketball hoop, a whiffle ball home run derby in the backyard, or an air hockey tournament.
8. Our Little Pumpkin Turns One
Design: Kid Collective
Matching Invite: Happy Pumpkin Invitation
A pumpkin-patch-inspired birthday party theme is ideal for celebrating an autumn baby. Use classic fall decor like pumpkins (of course!), gourds, corn stalks, faux leaves, and straw bales to set the scene. Create bunting and table settings with seasonal textiles like burlap, denim, or flannel.
For a party activity, set up a craft station for the kids to decorate mini pumpkins with markers, stickers, paint, googly eyes, temporary tattoos, and glitter. Or ask both kids and adults to dress up in Halloween costumes and crown awards for superlatives like “best costume” or “most creative.”
When it comes to food, the fall season is overflowing with inspo. Some options include: warm apple cider, pumpkin bread, chili, caramel apple slices, tabletop s’mores, Chex mix, apple cider donuts, and pumpkin spice anything — just to name a few.
9. First Rodeo
Design: Signature Greenvelope
Matching Invite: Howdy Partner Invitation
Celebrate your cowboy’s first rodeo with a Western-themed bash! This theme idea is perfect for a backyard cookout birthday party.
Fire up the grill for some mouth-watering barbecued chicken and ribs. On the side, serve cowboy caviar and tortilla chips, potato salad, and mac and cheese.
To set the stage, adorn picnic tables with bandana tablecloths and mini cactus centerpieces. You can also decorate with burlap, wagon wheels, barrels, and wooden crates.
For the entertainment, create a country music playlist, and enjoy an afternoon full of fun games like horseshoes or lasso the bull, where guests toss a hula hoop and try to “lasso” a stuffed animal or plastic bull head.
10. One Birthday to Rule Them All
Design: Becky Nimoy Stationery
Matching Invite: Fantasy Landscape Invitation
Gather all your friends and family from the Shire to celebrate your son’s special day! “The Lord of the Rings” makes for a fun and whimsical first birthday party theme.
Let your imagination and your love of the books and/or films inspire your decor ideas. You could hang a “Happy birthday” banner and a “No admittance except for party business” sign like the ones for Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday. For the lettering, take inspiration from Middle Earth-styled fonts.
And if you love a DIY craft, you could even create a party tree to place behind the gift table.
For the food, lay out a “second breakfast” buffet of sweet and savory brunch fare for your guests to enjoy.
Celebrate With a Unique First Birthday Party Idea for Boys
With one of the unique first birthday party ideas above, you’re sure to host an unforgettable celebration for your baby boy. From decorations to food, each theme offers up a chance to unleash your creativity and delight your guests.
Check out our Stationers blog for even more 1st birthday party theme ideas and event planning tips!
