Child's party wwyd?

Okay, I admit, when we did birthday parties, we generally did them big and did them at some pretty cool places. One thing you may want to ask is if the limit is over all attendees or if the 30 is the number of children excluding parents. Some places will have a different number due to size constraints, with a smaller 'party room' but parents don't count because they can wander around.

When the boys were little it was easier to have a party out and about because as a divorced family, it was easier to include families from both of their worlds in an environment that gave everyone room to mingle or ignore if they didn't know each other. And frankly, a neutral location that didn't make either of us parents uncomfortable like being in one of our homes would was good for the first couple of years after our divorce. I KNOW on the outside some of our locations and numbers made it look like a 'gift grab' or even an ostentatious spectacle for a two year old, but it was worked well for us. (For example, the year we rented a bus and drove all the boy and birthday attendees over to Gatorland for a birthday party-even I have to laugh at the extravagance of it, but that was the party that the boy and his dad cooked up and turns out the one he remembers the most.)

As for who you should invite? My parents never came to one of the parties, but my ex's did. I generally did a family thing-we would grill out and have cake and whatnot. We do that for everyone regardless of age in my family. Maybe you can do something like that and trim the guest list a little?