The mom who built a system so you don’t have to build one yourself.
Pool party planning, done properly. From a Nashville backyard — and one summer that changed everything.
I never intended to become a pool party planner. I just wanted to be the mom who made it look easy.
For a few years, I pulled that off. Mostly.
I had good taste. I had a pool. I had Pinterest and genuine enthusiasm. I could theme a party table in an afternoon and make it look like it took a week. What I didn’t have — and didn’t realize I didn’t have — was a real system.
Then the summer Lily turned seven arrived, and I said yes to a pool party for twenty-five kids.
I had the theme locked in within an hour. I spent three weeks curating a tropical tablescape — the exact right shade of coral napkins, a tiered stand with pineapple props, fresh flowers from the farmer’s market. It was genuinely beautiful.
What I didn’t have was a plan. Not a real one. Just sixty-four Pinterest pins, good intentions, and seventeen browser tabs.
Thirty-one people showed up instead of twenty-five. The food ran out by 2pm. The playlist died because nobody charged the speaker. I spent the entire afternoon running between the kitchen and the food table, trying to hold everything together from the inside.
I was not watching the pool.
There was one moment — one specific moment — when I did a headcount and came up one short. The three seconds before I found Jake cannonballing off the steps with his friend were the three longest seconds of my life.
He was fine. Of course he was fine. But I sat on the edge of that pool after the last guest left and I made myself a promise.
“Never again without a system. Never again not watching the water. Never again spending my own pool party in the kitchen.”
I spent the next year building that system. Testing it at every party I threw. Refining it, borrowing from my design background, throwing out what didn’t work and doubling down on what did.
The parties got better. More importantly, I actually got to be at them. I was in the water with Jake. I was sitting with my friends instead of running past them. I was the host who looked relaxed because she actually was.
Friends started asking for the system. Then friends of friends. Then people I’d never met were emailing me for the checklist. That’s when I realized it needed a proper home.
poolpartyplanner.com is that home. Splash Bash is the system, made digital.
Beautiful and stress-free are not opposites.
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“The most beautiful party is the most organised one.
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“I never want another mom to spend her own pool party in the kitchen.
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“Safety is not a checklist item. It is the foundation everything else is built on.
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“You do not need to choose between gorgeous and stress-free. You just need the right system.
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“A pool party should feel effortless for the host. That is the whole point.
After a few years, a friend said: turn it into an app.
Splash Bash is that app. Every checklist, every budget tracker, every safety tool, every theme — all in one place. It is what I wish I had had the summer Lily turned seven.
If you want the full system without having to build it yourself, start there. Onboarding is completely free and takes about three minutes. Marina — the AI party specialist inside the app — will walk you through everything.
Meet Marina and start planning →Free to start. No credit card needed for onboarding.
Questions, ideas, or just want to share how your party went?
I read every message. I can’t always reply to everything, but I genuinely love hearing from hosts — the ones planning their first pool party and the ones who have been doing it for years.
