I love throwing over-the-top birthday parties. I LOVE Harry Potter. And I love my son.

Put these three things together and you've got yourself one heck of a Diagon Alley themed Harry Potter birthday party.

I don't know if it's more accurate to say this all started when I read Harry Potter, when I introduced Griffin to Harry Potter, OR when my amazing friends Barbara and Dawn decided to throw a Harry Potter themed Halloween party and basically BUILD Diagon Alley. Either way I the stars aligned and we were able to take their backdrops and create one heck of a magical party!

We started the experience with "owl delivered" acceptance letters to Hogwarts for each attendee complete with an original piece of Harry Potter artwork by the birthday boy.

Once the day of the party arrived, we were hoping for sunshine but got lots of rain. Turns out rain isn't so bad to create British ambiance and my dumpy garage works pretty well as the location for Diagon Alley!

We had it all from Flourish & Blotts (complete with wizarding text books) to Potages Cauldron Shop to the Leaky Cauldron. Of course, first the kids had to stop at Gringotts Wizarding Bank to pick up some money!

Then, it was off to the Leaky Cauldron for pumpkin juice or polyjuice potion (aka Hawaiian punch and dry ice).

Then, we made our way to Ollivanders to paint our wands with "dragon blood" and "phoenix feathers."

Next up, everyone was sorted into the four houses by picking a house color out of the sort hat and then receiving their house tie!

We attacked a "dementor" piñata and played pin the scar on Harry.

Then, it was time to pass through to Platform 9 3/4 and take the Hogwarts Express to Hogwarts for the great feast! Our feast was laid out on farm tables from Flower + Furbish which were perfect!

We made Griffin's birthday cake look like the cake Hagrid brings to Harry upon their first meeting. I then proceeded to give the children every form of sugar I could manage from chocolate frogs to "cauldron creams", from licorice wands to pumpkin pasties and golden snitches.