Location Birthday "Party", but we can't afford to pay for guests' tickets/food....

Hi all, this is my first time posting to Parenting, I think, but I've been reading for awhile. Thought this would be a good place to post this, but sorry if it's not.My daughter is turning 5 soon, and we are party planning. Problem is, she is dead set on having a "zoo birthday". Being that 5 is a big birthday, I'd like to do what she wants, but reserving party space at the zoo near us is really expensive. Like way more than we can afford. So what I'm thinking is that we should just go to the zoo without reserving anything and walk around as a group with whoever can come (mostly family).We'd like to invite some of my daughter's friends and their families to come as well, but we also cannot afford to buy everyone's tickets and food for the day if we do it that way. I want to just say "hey we want to get together at the zoo for her birthday, but you'd need to purchase your own tickets/ food for the day" but I feel like that comes off as greedy that we don't pay for them.I wouldn't expect people to bring gifts or anything if we aren't paying for typical "party things", but I don't know how to bring that up to people without coming off as greedy or rude.Has anyone done anything like this before, and had success (or not)?Edit: we can't do a home party this year because we live in a really small apartment and will have people staying on our couches that weekend, so we won't have room for guests at home. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2uG3rC0