Although my best friend is an event planner, I love entertaining. What better excuse to have a party than Valentine’s Day; especially since some restrictions are going to be lifted soon. According to Katie Sweeney of MyDomaine fame, all parties have NINE essential elements…
1. An Enticing Invitation
Normally, I just create an event on Facebook and invite all our friends, or shoot them a quick text. But I thought it might be fun to send out formal invites (mailed and/or hand delivered). Vistaprint is a super cheap place to get professionally made stationary quickly. I love sending out handmade invitations as they are a sweet and cute gesture. For this party, I picked a chocolate box themed invitation.
2. An Interesting Group of Guests
Easily accomplished because our friends, family and coworkers are awesome and come from all walks of life. I thought it would be neat to stick to 14 guests; as a tie in to the date.
3. Festive Decor
It can be easy to go overboard. I LOVE Michael’s and Dollarama; they are my first go-to stores when shopping for party decor. Fresh flowers add such a beautiful touch to any party. I selected 2 bouquets of a dozen roses each (mulberry margarita purple) to put in frosted mason jars with the word LOVE printed in gold for the dining room and living room coffee table.
And I also picked up 2 full bouquets of white carnations to put in short square clear glass vases for the side counters and tables. The contrast in type of flower and vessel is pretty. Throughout the kitchen and living room (we have an open plan home) I like to place silver and gold votive holders (Ashland brand from Michael’s) for my flame-less tealights. This creates a soothing and slightly romantic atmosphere.
In addition to the candles ‘strewn’ around the room I also placed bowls of individually wrapped candy (raspberry hearts, chocolate kisses, sweetheart candies and Valentines coloured candy corn). Bulk Barn is an incredible place!
We have a gorgeous handcrafted wood cookie table, so I never like to cover it with a tablecloth so I picked up a lace table runner from Amazon. No party is complete without streamers. I chose pale pink and white. And nothing says ‘Welcome to my Valentine’s Day Party’ like confetti balloons (which I absolutely LOVE).
4. A Lively Playlist
Spotify has become my new new favourite app; I was slow to discover it. I put a mixture of songs/genres that everyone enjoys and stayed away mushy love songs which I thought would put everyone to sleep. The music is more for background noise than actual dancing.
5. Thoughtful Details
Everyone loves a party favour. I ordered some chocolate rose and chocolate lip lollipops from Purdy’s (as an anchor to my invitation); for people to take home with them at the end of the night with a personalized name tag.
6. Delicious Food
Most of our friends have kids, so I figured most would like to enjoy an early dinner by themselves and then stop by for snacks and drinks at our place. I always go overboard on the food…it never fails.
According to whatscookingamerica.com, for 14-16 guests you should serve 5 appetizer. I am currently cooking my way through my newest Pioneer Woman cookbook so this party is the perfect opportunity to try out new appetizers. My menu includes: pimento cheese; served in mini red peppers and for spreading on crackers, watermelon feta bites, tortilla pinwheels, bacon wrapped dates, salad on a stick, barbeque chicken wings and a shrimp ring.
7. Potent Cocktails
We always BYOB to parties; however, I wanted to do a signature cocktail for the ladies and one for the gentlemen. I opted for easy to make recipes because I didn’t want to bartend all night. As always, I want our guests to make themselves at home and help themselves. I also make a point of serving drinks in actual glasses rather than plastic solo cups. A pitcher of watermelon margaritas and a salt rimming station will be set up for the ladies and for the gents: the classic Old Fashioned
8. An Element of Surprise
Even though most of my friends would consider the party favour as a surprise, but I wanted to do something special for this special party. I’m splurging for this! I’m ordering a cake from the Duchess Bake Shop. But I can’t decide… the Fig, Pear & Blackberry Cheesecake is so tempting, but then again so are the Duke Cake and the Duchess Cake.
9. A Group Bonding Activity
Our group loves playing games or watching hockey together and a lot of the time we do both while catching up with each other. So if there happens to be an important game on, I’ll tune into that for our guests (it’s definitely a hit with the husbands). Another much loved activity is Cards Against Humanity (especially later in the evening). Depending on the size of the guest list you can even set up a few ‘games’ stations and people can move between them throughout the night. Even picking up a silly V-Day game from Dollarama can yield lots fun and lots of laughs.