Savanna's Willy Wonka fifth birthday

Savanna was turning five - and her parents wanted a Willy Wonka party that didn't look like a Willy Wonka party. No primary purple-and-orange, no plastic top hats, no off-the-shelf cardboard cut-outs. Something soft, considered, and personalised hard enough that the theme feels like it belongs to her.

The brief was a single threshold installation at the family home - a Surrey house with a marble hall and a chandelier above it. The setup had to hold the room on its own and photograph well as the family moved through it.

One installation, three design moves

A children's fifth doesn't need a backdrop, a tablescape and a feature wall. One installation, properly designed, will carry the day - and gives the parents one beautifully styled moment to photograph rather than three half-finished ones.

Three moves did the work here. A balloon arch in deep purple, soft lilac and grape, sculpted asymmetrically so it reads as a canopy rather than a frame. A painted cocoa-bar plinth custom-printed for Savanna - the only warm note in the palette, sat low and forward so it draws the eye in. And a pair of oversized lollipop swirls flanking the arch at different heights, so the silhouette has rhythm rather than symmetry.

The number "5" is a purple column with a brushed-gold numeral, keeping the milestone in the room without competing with the ticket panel for attention.

Making the theme feel like Savanna's

The single most important piece in the setup is the gold panel. It's modelled on the golden ticket, but the typography is printed with Savanna's name - not the studio's name, not a generic invitation. That swap is what stops the installation feeling like a hired backdrop.

The cocoa-bar wrapper carries the same idea. It's a painted prop built in-studio so the purple sits inside the palette instead of fighting it, and the proportions are scaled for a five-year-old rather than for an adult shelf.

Would you believe it started life as a stack of disposable plastic take-away boxes? I spray-painted them in the studio until the wrapper and the proportions read right. It's the piece I most loved making on this build - and the bit you couldn't buy in if you tried.

Small touches around the base - a toadstool prop, a scatter of moss, a sweet-shop nod in the props on the plinth - are kept deliberately quiet. They're the texture under the headline, not the headline.

What this means for your brief

If your child has a theme they're fixed on - Wonka, Bluey, Encanto, a dinosaur, a particular colour - the question isn't whether to honour it. It's how to design around it so the room still reads as considered. Constrain the palette to three or four colours. Pick one hero installation rather than three. Personalise hard enough that the theme reads as theirs, not as a costume.

See also the six children's party themes shaping 2026 for how this kind of restrained, thoughtfully styled take is showing up across briefs this year. The same logic underpins our children's party styling and the milestone work over on milestone celebrations.

Why I love this part

Themed fifth birthdays are where parents most often expect to compromise on the design - to lean on shop-bought banners and novelty plates because the child loves a character. They don't have to. A character theme can be rendered as carefully as a christening or a milestone, and the child still gets the thing they asked for - just designed for their room.

If you're planning a fifth, a sixth or a first and there's a theme your child won't budge on, tell me what they have in mind. The first sketch is always free.

- Laura