Construction birthday invitations

Construction parties usually come with kit. Hard hats and high-vis vests for every guest, sometimes handed out at the door, sometimes expected from home. That is a decision the host has already made and almost never writes down. If you are providing the hats, say so, because otherwise half the parents buy them. If you want children to arrive already dressed, say that instead, and say it plainly enough that nobody misses it. A child who turns up in a party shirt at a room full of tiny site workers has a rough hour.

The second thing is dirt. These parties are usually outside and usually involve a dig pit, a sandpit, gravel, water or all four, which is exactly what makes them good. It also means clothes come home ruined unless parents were warned. One line asking for old clothes and shoes that can be hosed off does the job, and it is worth more on this invitation than any decorative element on it.

The theme itself has a trap. Most construction party goods are built around a small number of licensed cartoon vehicles, and once you have those on the invitation the whole party has to match them or it looks accidental. Real machines are better anyway: an excavator drawn properly, a cone, a caution stripe, a plan-drawing grid. Children who love diggers love actual diggers, and the design then holds together across the invitation, the signs and the cake table without paying for a licence.