For the first birthday, we planned to have a small celebration with friends, with cake for the adults and a separate "smash-cake". We had invited my parents and a couple of other close friends (no other kids, really). But then Kai got sick that day, so we ended up giving him the smash-cake the next day and celebrating by ourselves - and then two days later, a few friends came over and shared the bigger cake with us.

Big birthdays before three often don't make a lot of sense. It's around 3 and 4 where I see lots of other kids invited, themes, having the event somewhere.

We went to another lovely 1st birthday that was simply a picnic at a playground/park.