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Determining the kind of party you’ll want to create
will make a big difference in how you’ll approach it, decorations and food
wise.
- An evening Cocktail Party
- A Dinner Party
- Halloween Wedding Party
- House Costume Party
- A Children’s Party
Food Wise:
- Hors d’ouvres
- Buffet
- Snacks
- Dinner
- Desserts and other goodies
- Birthday type food
- Drinks: punch or specialty cocktails
Let’s start with a simple checklist:
- Choose a Date: keep in mind the closer you get to
Halloween, the more parties are scheduled. If you don’t want conflicts,
choose your date early. Other friends who might be considering a party of
their own, will at least have the heads up that you are planning on the
same date. Plan to make your party an event that your Ghoulish Guest will
not want to leave.
- Create your Ghoul Guest List:
- Decorations: Don’t overdo. Be unique! Of course
you’ll be decorating differently for a children’s or an adult party.
There are ambiance decorations to set the atmosphere – walls, etc. and
then there are useful decorations – such as cake platters, serving
platters, bowls, tablecloths, napkins, plates, candleholders and more
Halloween collectibles. – We should note that if you’re simply throwing a
drinking party only, big box stores’ plastic or paperware is probably more
of what you are looking for.
- For a Dinner Party, Ghoulish elegance is key to the
successful wow factor. Fabric/Cloth tablecloth, placemats and napkins are
the beginning of a spooky dinner. Having a contrasting metallic orange or
black charger (or a combination) gives it that added touch.
- Candles, candlesticks or candelabras add even more.
- Name Tags, party hats, party favors or candy
containers are a nice touch.
- If it’s a Dinner Party, you’ll be serving the food
at the table, so you’ll probably be sitting at your slab table - and you
can simply verbalize what’s on the different platters (so food tags aren’t
important).
- If you’re setting a table buffet style – having Food
Tags is not just fun, but critical to your Ghoulish Guests to know what
they are placing on their buffet plates. Giving foods ghoulish names
helps set the ambiance for spooky foods. (It’s always a shame of a waste,
when guests toss their food because they couldn’t recognize it, and it
wasn’t what they thought it was.)
- On a Buffet, try to separate the foods – light,
main, and desserts, so ghoulish guests aren’t dropping ketchup on your
cheesecake!
Drinks:
- Bigger party – Punch or Cider Servers are
recommended, or you’ll be stuck in your kitchen all evening making
drinks. (Besides – by making your own punch or cider you can control the
alcohol content to make sure your quests are safe as they fly their brooms
home.)
- Punch bowls allow you to serve a variety of punches
(alcohol or non-alcoholic – both important in today’s safe driving
environment).
- Cider Servers allow you to serve punches as well –
or hot drinks, such as coffee drinks. (You can even make up mixes ahead
of time that your guests can refill with the flip of a lever.)
- Check out our Cocktail page.
- Come up with a “Signature Drink” of the evening. IT
makes it easier on you and drives your guests in that direction. They’ll
know you put your effort into that special drink.
Lighting:
- We carry all sorts of candles, candleholders,
votives, candelabras and even a spooky skull chandelier.
- Many of our odd or unique candles are for appearance
and ambiance. You may decline to light them if you don’t want the great
designs to melt. That’s where candleholders, candelabras and votives can
come in handy. You can easily burn solid color candles with less fear of
melting a favorite candle design.
Let’s get back to Party ideas:
Office Potlucks
- The Office Potluck can be pretty scary. But you can
be the hit of the office. Everyone usually brings the same boring things
on a paper plate or plain ol’ bowl. You can be the talk of the office by
simply bringing something to die for in a unique Halloween ceramic bowl,
plate or platter. If it’s a dessert, consider a cake plate server.
Imagine the look on their faces (make that a scowl) if you serve up
something special on one of our special chip & dip platters.
- Speaking of Office Potlucks – having worked in a
bank environment for over a decade, and in the corporate business office
for even longer, we’ve come to realize that you usually can’t wear a full
costume to the work place. We have a selection of small pill hats by
Department 56 that are perfect for a fun group look (like a row of
tellers) and ties for men. For ladies, we also have Halloween scarves and
rhinestone lapel pins jewelry. (I guess guys can’t really wear our
Halloween boxers to the office!)
Halloween Wedding Party
- The Halloween Wedding: Every bride wants her wedding
to be something special that will always be remembered. Not everyone can
get married on the Today Show with Matt Lauer and the morning crew! We
can’t think of any more special event than a Halloween Wedding. Think of
the Beetlejuice Wedding. We even carry bride and groom candles – The
Newlydeads, cake toppers, and even bride and groom salt and peppers.
- Imagine the ceremony with all your guests dressed
up. This is one wedding tht would definitely make Utube. Thin summer of
2009, a wedding party danced down the aisle, followed by a dancing bride.
It was the hit of Utube and even made all the nightly news. Imagine a
wedding party dancing down the aisle to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. And
hey! If you are in the Portland-metro area, contact us to photograph your
wedding at a big discount. (We have done wedding photography for over 16
years.)
- For the Wedding Cake, imagine the Halloween cake
plates (paper or ceramic). We even have cake plates and cake servers. If
you’re planning a dinner, we have chargers – shiny black and metallic
copper. Together they make quite a dramatic statement on your dining
tables. Katherine’s gives us black flowers with orange glitter. They are
spectacular arranged in a centerpiece (like a Halloween punch bowl).
- Think about your demeanor throughout the evening –
much like Lily & Fred Munster, or Morticia and Gomez Adams – mon cheri!
Ham it up! Give your guests something to talk about for the rest of their
lives (move over Mama Mia weddings). “We’re Not Dead! We’re Just
Married!”
- Consider a Bride & Groom Tree – a black tree, with
fun ornaments. Consider allowing guests to take one small ornament as a
wedding remembrance for a little green cash contribution on your tree.
- We even have Halloween wrapping paper, boxes,
ribbons, bows and cards for the perfect Halloween wedding gift.
Halloween Birthday Party
- Now here’s the kind of party that I’ve always
wanted. (I’ve kinda adopted 10/31 for my birthday and I am old enough now
that my friends allow it. My birthday was actually 12/31. Hate it! No
one thinks of birthdays on New Year’s Eve.)
- And if you have a birthday on October 31st,
we have a Birthday registry, where you can sign up your birthday.
Everyone we know who has a birthday on that date really plans a big
celebration with their friends. You could even leave a list of items on
your registry of items you would love to add to your collection, so all
your friends can see what you could use.)
- No matter what your age, what a birthday Monster
Bash be without balloons, streamers, party hats, candy containers, gift
wrap, ribbons and bows. And of course you need some party games.
- Some quick ideas for your kids birthday party – (we
did these at a kid’s school I worked at): How about a mummy wrap, where
the kids use white toilet paper for a mummy wrap? How about a mystery
touch? We took copy paper boxes and covered them with black garbage bags,
with just a slight small hole for a hand. And then in each of the boxes
we placed the following:
- For a fun party cake, how about a white cake with
contrasting black spider web with black plastic spiders crawling all over
the cake.
- How about the Cat Box treat. Put white coconut
flakes in a plastic container, and bury almond roca in amongst the coconut
flakes. Yech!
- And no matter what you do, don’t forget gummy worms,
spiders and other yummy bugs.
- For the Punch – try lime sherbert in a special
non-alcoholic concoction.
Plan a Dinner Party: A Ghoul Fest
(other fun names to call your dinner event; Fear Festival; Death
by Dinner; Famished Phobias; Phamished Phantoms.
Think of some fun tie-in games:
- Guess the Ghoul? (Tag someone’s back when they come
in from some scary movie and make them guess which character they are by
fellow guests giving them clues.)
- Scare Someone to Death! (Tell some scary stories to
your fellow guests. The ghoulish guest with the best story, voted by your
fellow guests, wins the contest.)
- Video Freak-out. Tape segments of various scary
movies and have guests, guess the name of the moving (imagine trying to
guess which of the 8 Halloween movies, Jason actually dies – well that was
all of them wasn’t it. Or which of the Friday the 13th or
Nightmare on Elm Streets, or….well you get the picture.)
Recipe Ideas:
Haunted Hors d’ouvres; Salads; Main courses;
Desserts
- Spaghetti – two meat balls per plate. Slice green
olives with pimento centers and place them on the meatballs. Use a “green
pepper” smile. Or another cool touch might be sliced red beets with
hard-boiled egg slices for even bigger eyes. Use some red food coloring
for bloodshot eyes.)
- Place gummy worms around the edge of the plate.
- Jello Shooters with candy insects inserted into the
jello.
- Meat Loaf Road Kill – dried fruits for ears, or
green or red bell peppers. Drip catchup off the meatloaf onto the side of
the plate, and insert a knife into the meat.
- Enc”hell”adas ; Tombmales; Dead Men don’t Taco;
Freaked-out Frijoles
- Sandwitches – Lettuce, Avocado and Red peppers with
your favorite meat.
- Frog Legs & Witches Toes – thinly sliced pickles and
little smokies.
- Swamp Sandwiches (Sloppy Joes) – or call them
Bogwitches; Blended-brains; Maserated Road Kill
- Casket Creepers: Different shapes and size of pasta
with white sauce- Glat Egg Noodles are the Tape Worm Surprises. Use
different color pasta for a fun effect.
- Skully’s Chest of Ribs por Dead Man’s Chest of Ribs
– your basic baby back ribs.
- Snow White’s Deadly Temptation – Caramel Apples with
apple crisp
- Zombie Hands – Use rubber glove as molds for jello.
- Zombie Queen Cake – Red cake, white frosting, accent
with red veins, red cherries, and black plastic ants.
- Toe Tags – Fruit rollups. (Make paper toe tags with
names for the fruit rollups)
- Spell & Hexes – Chex Mix
- Witches Cauldrons – Use canon ball bread and form a
bowl for something hot- maybe the Sloppy Joes concoction.
- Instead of Macaroni Salad – Macabre-oni Salad – Add
some red bell peppers or some chilli powder.
- Boil, Boil, Toil & Trouble Punch – Green sherbert
ice cream, dry ice, vodka mix punch.
- Dessert – Devil’s Food Cake,
- Graveyard Platter (Or Vulture Pickin’s Platter)
chicken hotwings or legs with cayenne pepper.
- Gator bites – slice some pickles for that bumpy skin
look.
- Cocktail idea – Kamakazi’s with green or red food
coloring.
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