Hi, friends! Today, I’m going to share a two-fold post that focuses on tips for planning a movie theater birthday party and offers Frozen birthday party ideas with three free printables! We recently hosted our daughters’ movie birthday party at a local movie theater. We planned the movie well in advance of the Frozen 2 premiere because the girls thought it would be fun to have a Frozen themed birthday party.
Honestly, I have put my girls off of a princess birthday party for the last few years. We have been to so many Disney princess birthday party events that I thought maybe a princess birthday party was a bit overdone already. However, as soon as I saw the first promo for Frozen 2 back in fall of 2018, I knew what we had to do! Kids’ cinema party with a Frozen birthday theme it was! How fun it would be to have a Frozen 2 movie premiere party in a movie theater party room!
Before I get into our Frozen birthday party ideas, I want to start by talking about how to plan a movie theater birthday party. Granted, I have only dealt with one theater, and my experience may not match entirely with other theaters.
Tips for Planning a Movie Theater Birthday Party
Check to See if Your Theater Has a Movie Theater Party Room
Not all theaters have a party room. Some movie theaters – like several of my local theaters – have one movie theater party room. I booked our movie theater party at my local Rave Theater in Little Rock.
Larger theaters in bigger cities may have multiple party rooms. If your local theater does not have a party room, you will need to think out other party options. One option would be to host a pre-party at your home in the hours before the movie starts. All the party guests could caravan to the theater in time to arrive for the movie.
Book Your Movie Theater Party WAY in Advance
I cannot stress how ahead of the game you need to be – especially with a super popular movie premiere. The more anticipated the movie, the more demand there will be for the movie theater party room. As I mentioned, I began contacting the movie theaters in Little Rock, AR over a year in advance. When I contacted the Rave in Little Rock, I began communicating with a very helpful man in guest relations at my local theater over a year in advance.
He offered me two party rental options. One was to host a private screening of the movie for our kids’ cinema party. We would have an entire theater to ourselves with this option. As cool as this option sounded, it was far out of my birthday party budget. I chose the second option which was to host a private party in the party room one hour ahead of the movie with reserved seating in a general theater with the other movie theater attendees. After several emails, we put my name down with the understanding that the movie premiere date that had been released was only a tentative date and was subject to change.
About five or six months ahead of the premiere date, he and I touched base again to discuss additional details. He let me know that even the theater management would not know the exact times of the movie until 1-2 weeks ahead of the premiere.
Two weeks or so ahead of our movie party date, he contacted me again to ask me to come pay my deposit and sign the paperwork. He was able to give me the exact show times at this point and let me choose which one I wanted. I chose the 4:50 Frozen 2 movie viewing with a movie party start time of 3:50. He said I would be able to arrive earlier to set up.
How to Invite Guests to a Movie Theater Party
This is possibly the trickiest part of planning a kids cinema party. I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to wait until the week before the party (when the theater contacted me with show times) to invite guests to our cinema party. Preferably, I like to give around 3 weeks notice. Therefore, I created a Facebook birthday party invitation so that I could provide updates as needed.
In the original wording of the invitation, I explained to guests that we were inviting them for the afternoon of November 23 with a time slot of 2-6 (which the theater had provided to me at the end of October). I told them I would update with the actual time as soon as I had it and just wanted them to know the date so they could keep the afternoon open. I am including a file with the Facebook cover photo I created for my Facebook invitation. It coordinates with the other Frozen party favors printables linked below.
Movie Theater Birthday Party Cost
I was given a detailed explanation of what to expect as far as our movie theater birthday party cost. We were required to have at least 10 children to host the kids’ movie party. In the end, I paid about $300 for 32 people. This comes to a little less than $10 per person and includes the use of the party room and the costs of a movie ticket for all 32 of us.
Also, the 15 children at the party all received a snack pack for the movie. The pack included popcorn, fruit snacks, and a drink. The theater also supplied drinks for the party. We brought our own party food and had pizza delivered straight to the theater. It was the easiest party yet as far as food is concerned! Also, I wouldn’t say the pizza was necessary. Since our movie time ran into dinner time, we went ahead and ordered pizza. It was delivered around the time the party started.
Since my daughters’ birthdays are only two weeks apart and they are only two years apart in age, we always have double birthday parties. I find $300 a reasonable cost for a large party rental (with entertainment included) for two children. I should also mention that I chose to pay for one parent along with every child. I didn’t have to do that. The guest relations manager told me that some party hosts pay for the kids only. I felt a little weird about asking parents to pay for themselves, and I paid for the parents who came. But we did have to limit guests. Also, only 40 people max are allowed in the party room.
Now, I am going to switch gears and talk about some princess party ideas. In this next section, I will discuss our Frozen party decorations, our Frozen cupcakes, and our Frozen party favors.
Planning a Princess Birthday Party With a Frozen Birthday Theme
Obviously, it was easy for us to choose which specific princess birthday party theme to use. After all, we were having a Frozen premiere party at the Frozen 2 premiere.
Planning a Disney princess birthday party can get overwhelming. Once you go down the rabbit hole looking for princess party ideas, ideas will swirl! I think it is best to simplify from the start which direction you want to take.
We decided to make our party a girls-only princess party, complete with princess dresses. This set the tone for a “royal gala” effect. So I took that initial step further into setting up a Frozen winter wonderland party theme with snowflakes.
Choose Your Frozen Birthday Decorations
Of course, you don’t have to use snowflakes for a Frozen party. Maybe, you want to decorate with life-size Elsa and Anna cut outs. Or maybe Olaf on a sheet of “snow” is your main centerpiece. It’s possible you could just stick to a color scheme of purples and icy blues for your Frozen birthday decorations.
For me, I found that using snowflake party decorations in combination with a purple and blue color scheme was both easy and practical for my wallet. After all, snowflake party decorations are sold everywhere in stores between September and December. I found cute snowflake decor at so many places from Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Target, Walmart, Hobby Lobby to more lavish boutiques.
Additionally, my Frozen birthday decorations (snowflakes) can be re-purposed for upcoming Christmas parties. In fact, I already have plans to reuse the snowflake decor for three specific upcoming parties. I will simply remove the Frozen-ish elements (like the purple and the icy blues) and replace with silver metallics for a more sophisticated winter wonderland party effect. If I went with full Disney Frozen decorations, there wouldn’t be much way to repurpose those items for another use.
Also, because you will transporting all of your decorations, you will want to try to keep things simple.
Snowflake Party Decorations for a Frozen Party
In this section, I will show the snowflake party decorations we used in our Frozen birthday decorations.
Simple Snowflake Decorations on Party Tables
On the party tables, I simply placed alternating purple and ice blue plastic tablecloths. On top, we used Frozen dessert plates for the cupcakes. Down the middle of the tables, we scattered some plastic snowflake ornaments which I had bought at Dollar Tree at 10 for $1. Simple and done.
Frozen Cupcake Table Decorations
My sweet husband painted a plywood board with an icy blue paint on one side. This was used as the backdrop for my incredible flocked snowflakes that I bought during my visit to Guess and Company Christmas Warehouse recently.
On the cupcake table, I layered an icy blue tablecloth beneath a textured purple fabric tablecloth and a “sheet of snow” (from Dollar Tree General). I cut an icicle design into the sheet of snow. (I did the cutting at home as well as any other prep work that could be done in advance. I knew our time to prepare the party room would be limited.)
Frozen Backdrop for Photos
Rave Theater in Little Rock has a cute permanent photo corner in its movie theater party room. I can’t speak highly enough of the helpful staff at the Rave Theater in Little Rock. When my family arrived to begin party set up, two staff members came in with a step stool. They did pretty much 90% of the set up of our Frozen backdrop! They agreed to take down their original red and yellow decor and put up my purple and blue decor.
Our Frozen backdrop turned out so cute! I had made the Elsa braids at home by braiding a purple, white, and blue tablecloth for each braid. I also made one solid purple one. We dangled the braids from the sides and dangled more banners and snowflakes. The more snowflakes you hang, the better it will look!
I took lots of adorable pictures of adorable princesses in front of that Frozen backdrop. However, if your theater does not have a photo backdrop corner, not to fear. Most theaters will have promotional displays up for popular kids’ movies. You can always position the kids around the display for cute pictures.
Snowflake Party Favors
On one side of the table, we placed a glass jar of snowflake party favors. They are tubes of Sixlets in the Frozen color scheme with a purple snowflake topper. I covered the printed words with a white label and added a piece of purple tulle ribbon. I didn’t stumble upon these snowflake party favors at Dollar General until the day before the party. With more time, I would have made arrangements to print some of our own party labels.
My original plan was to use some glittery blue snowflake ornaments I had found at Dollar Tree. I was going to gift each child with a snowflake ornament with a thank you tag. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to do this. When I saw the candies at the store the day before, I quickly change my Frozen party favors idea. The snowflake ornament would be a really nice idea for anyone though. My vision was to hang the snowflakes ornaments off of some white spray painted branches in a pretty glass vase.
However, I am pretty happy with how our Sixlets snowflake party favors worked perfectly as Frozen party favors! They also served as an extra movie snack for the kiddos. To bring a little cute to the table, I made two different printables to pop into a picture frame.
Just click the links and download the Frozen printables to use at your own Frozen birthday party!
“Don’t Let It Go” thank you printable
“Freeze Our Friendship” thank you printable
Frozen Cupcakes
There are so many ideas for Frozen themed cupcakes. My friend who runs a cupcake business made the cupcakes for our Frozen birthday party. In fact, she has made cupcakes for our previous three birthday parties. Those were our pumpkin patch birthday party, Trolls birthday party, and Halloween birthday party.
She created three different designs for the Frozen cupcake frosting – which all kept in tune with our winter wonderland theme party.
Some Frozen cupcakes had handmade rock candy designed to look like jagged pieces of ice. The others had edible snowflake candies with blue and purple frosting. I absolutely loved how they totally tied in with our winter wonderland theme!
Like with the favors above, I took some pictures at home before we left for the party and again at the party. That is why the background looks different.
Well, that’s all I have today on a movie theater birthday party and Frozen birthday party ideas! It was great to see the kiddos having a wonderful time and enjoying Frozen 2 after a year of waiting!
Happy party planning!
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