The projectionist was the only theater staff person there at the time, but he was so helpful and brought in another little table from their cafe which helped. I had planned everything out for 6′ banquet tables (tablecloths, happy birthday banners, centerpieces, food placement, etc.) so it was definitely a “make it work” moment. We ran into a snag right off the bat in that I was expecting two large 6′ banquet tables to be set up for food and favors, but we arrived to find two little 4′ long tables barely deep enough to fit a popcorn tub. I planned out as much as I could beforehand, including the placement of decorations, food layout, etc., and on the morning of the party we loaded up my friend Jill’s minivan (thank goodness for that thing!), headed to the theater, and raced like crazy people to have everything set up in time. The challenge with having this year’s party somewhere other than our house is that I only had 30 minutes to set up food and decorations before guests arrived.Ĭonsidering how short I was on time, I was so grateful to have my sister Amanda and my friend Jill helping me with set-up. The party was on, and I was so excited for Kate’s first movie theater experience to be with her favorite movie and all our friends! By this point I was pretty committed to the Cars birthday party theme, so I kept on searching and was thrilled to finally find a theater with a DVD player that would let us bring in our own copy of Cars to play on the day! The theater’s only requirement was that we didn’t charge our guests (which of course we didn’t). I was repeatedly told that our only option for a movie theater party was to have the party featuring a different movie currently playing in theaters. While calling around to research our options I discovered that Disney/Pixar movies that aren’t currently playing in theaters are locked up in “the vault” and Disney will not release their reels to theaters. By now you’ve seen all the Cars-themed party fun of Kate’s 3rd birthday party, and now here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how it all came together!Īs I shared in Kate’s 3rd birthday party post, we decided to hold her celebration in a movie theater! Deciding on our venue was the easy part – finding a theater that would actually accommodate us was surprisingly challenging.

Cars 2 disney birthday