Written by: Mikayla Coleman

I’ve had a few cats in my lifetime, but one constant was that they were all rescued and adult-aged, meaning I had no idea when their actual birthdays were. When I adopted a kitten this summer who was born in-shelter and I saw her date of birth written on her paperwork, I knew instantly that I was going to be celebrating every birthday with her. 

It sounds kind of crazy right? Who throws a birthday party for their cat? Me. I do. As someone who loves to divert attention from myself onto other people — or I guess, animals — I could not think of a better way to gather my friends in a format in which I didn’t have to be the center of attention. 

The steps listed below are the ones that I took to throw my cat’s first birthday party. Use these tips if one finds themselves in a similar situation — all aspects of our lives deserve to be celebrated, especially the lives and relationships of our pets. 

Make invitations — When I knew I was going to have a birthday party for my cat, I knew invitations would be important. One should choose whether they would like to have a digital invitation in the form of a pdf, printed invitations or both options to choose from. I ended up printing my invitations because I wanted my friends to be able to have a physical picture of my cat to display in their homes on their refrigerators or walls. It also made it seem like more of a solidified deal, getting the partygoers thinking “Oh, wow, there are actual invitations. She is taking this very seriously.” 

There are many ways to design both digital and printed invitations. If one is printing invitations, stores like Walmart or Walgreens print invitations for pretty cheap and have a plethora of different invitation designs to choose from and individualize. I ended up making my own custom invitation on a drawing software called ProCreate, where I drew over a pre-existing picture of my cat, including the party’s day, time and place. I then got them printed through Walmart and distributed them amongst my friends. 

Decorations and supplies — When I started researching decorations for pet birthday parties, I was pleasantly surprised by how much variety there was to choose from in the pet party realm. There were a lot of different packages on Amazon, many of which included balloons and banners spelling out things like “Meow” and “Let’s Pawty.” At first, I thought these were pretty cheesy, and don’t get me wrong, a lot of them were not the aesthetic that I was going for, but I ended up picking up a “Let’s Pawty” banner from Target, of all places. I picked up some other miscellaneous supplies like a flower garland and small paper plates from there as well. The star of the show, however, was the cat birthday outfit I bought off of Amazon — a party hat and skirt decorated with polka-dotted tulle resembling confetti. I do not think I will get her to tolerate it for even a second, especially not in front of our guests, but I couldn’t not buy it. 

Pick out party favors — When it comes to a cat party, party favors had me kind of stumped. My guests are all college-aged and older, so traditional goodie bags were out the window. I wanted to have something to offer as thanks for coming to my super extra cat birthday party, and everyone knows college students love free stuff, especially if it’s cute. After scouring the depths of Amazon, I found some cute cat keychains that were all in the same sort of cute, minimalist style that came with cute mesh gift bags. This was great, but it didn’t feel like quite enough, so I ordered a few sticker packs in a similar style and paired them with the keychains. 

Food and drinks — Running on a college budget, trying to figure out food and drinks was difficult. I wanted to be able to allow people to choose what they want to snack on, without having to cook anything on my own and accommodating a large variety of food allergies. I ended up going with a charcuterie board, which allowed me to be able to cover all of those bases. I did a majority of my shopping at Trader Joe’s and supplemented missing pieces at other stores like Roth’s. 

Happy celebrating!

Contact the author at howleditor@wou.edu