1st Birthday Series: Venue Hunting

On the 30th of October, our little one is turning one!  Wow!  I cannot believe a year has passed by.  At the risk of sounding cliché, I need to agree with the general opinion that time actually does fly by.  I will write more of my thoughts concerning her turning one at some other time.  Right now, I intend to focus more on the event.  Since there are a lot of factors involved in celebrating her birthday, I intend to write them one-blog-entry-at-a-time in a more or less chronological order, with the culmination being a blog entry about the actual party.

The first thing we did when we started thinking about having a party was the 'where'.  I have heard that halls in Bangalore are always overbooked and constantly in demand.  So we decided it was better if we started well in advance.  My wife and I decided to keep the party small (since all 'wise' baby sites warned us that big birthday parties might scare babies!).  Jenny's birth and baptism happened in Kerala; so most of our Bangalore relatives and acquaintances were unable to attend.  So we made a list of people essential to the party and started to check out halls.  

This was the first time I was planning a party for myself in Bangalore.  Hence, I was quite unaware of the terms and conditions of halls, rates and so on.  I printed out a menu suggestion that we liked and went from restaurant to restaurant within a five km radius.  The scenario in most places is that the hall comes free but that the food has to be taken from that restaurant itself.  This is reasonable enough.  However, when one compares the rates from hotel to hotel, that's where the difference shows.  For the same food prices varied from 150 INR to more than 350 INR.  Which I found was unreasonable, since none of the hotels were of Star Quality or much different from the rest.  

The next option was to rent a hall, independent of a restaurant, and to have the food catered.  This would have been the ideal choice.  But apparently, the party halls that exist in our area are primarily meant for wedding parties and would be too big for our small one.  We finally did find a good one, which belongs to a convent.  It was perfect and we agreed to take it.  The rate was reasonable, too.  However, two days later, I received a call from the Mother Superior of the convent, in which she informed us that since it was a convent and they would be having prayers in the evening, they could not have parties after 6 pm.  Which was inconvenient, since we thought of having our party from 6.30 pm on...I mean, for a birthday party, half the attraction are the lights and decorations, which, I think, lose out their charm in day light.  Nothing like artificial light to bring out colours!

So, this option was out, too.  3rd option was to build a 'tent' on the roof of our house and to have the party there.  Well, I was against this idea from the very outset.  Let's face it...people from the south are not that used to standing dinner parties.  They need to be seated and they like to sit when they eat.  And for a seated dinner party, our roof would surely not suffice.

Finally, we decided to go for a hall cum menu from one of the reasonably priced restaurants, which had a pretty good hall, too.  Calls were made, menu's were discussed, numbers were exchanged: everything was done.  

Apparently not yet!  The week when all this was decided was the last week of September.  That week was important in India as on the 30th of September, the Ayodhya judgement was to be taken.  So, the day after I confirmed the hall, I got a call from the hotel telling me that they would not be able to have the party since it would be the day of the judgement and unrest in the city was expected.  I smiled and told them that our party was on 30th of October, which cleared the matter.  They just got confused since we planned things to far ahead of time.  Well, I would rather be safe than sorry.

So, now we have the hall.  The next step in the 'saga' would come in the next blog entry! :)