Nicola's 60th Birthday Party

We decided to have my 60th birthday party at Blackstock Country Estate in Hellingly. It's a lovely character barn with private outside area as well as inside. The staff here were very helpful and friendly and the food was very tasty and reasonably priced.

Lovely friendly band and excellent music!!

We had a steel band several years ago in our garden and it was perfect for a summer party. We wanted a similar relaxed, summer feel for the first 2 hours of this party while people were eating chatting, eating canapes and drinking champagne before the meal and disco which came later.

We found Function Central by searching on the internet. Booking was easy, and we went with The Merry-Makers Steel Band 4-piece option and that seemed ideal.

The Merry-Makers delivered excellent music!! A really lovely friendly band, perfect summer party music.

The highlights? We hired a magician to do 2 hours of close magic amongst our guests, and they were all left absolutely gob smacked as he was so good! But the whole party, being surrounded by all our closest and dearest friends and family was brilliant - helped by perfect weather.

My advice to someone else planning a party? If you have balloons outside make sure their weights are heavy enough! Plenty of forward planning, but just relax and enjoy yourselves on the actual day. Have a free bar so guests do not have to pay for anything - the party has cost a lot anyway so don't scrimp at the end.

Suppliers

Blackstock Country Estate

Coleys Cakes - They created the most wonderful looking and delicious cake with the theme 'Sooty, Sweep & Sue'.

Over the Moon - They supplied all the balloons and delivered then on the Sunday morning of the party (even though it was bank holiday weekend) - very helpful, friendly service.

Dave Callaway Disco - He kept everyone up and dancing all evening once the steel band had finished. He was happy for me to guide him on my music preferences, with certain songs we definitely wanted included.