Tis the season for fun and festive grownup drinks! With the abundance of Christmas soirees and the impending New Year’s Eve festivities, here are some ideas for holiday cocktails to serve at your next gathering…
Peppermint White Russians
Christmas Cranberry Pomegrante Sangria
Holly Jolly Spiked Egg Nog
Christmas Champagne Cocktail
Bridgette also wrote a great post about holiday cocktails, too! Check it out.
Among countless other reasons, one of the things I was most excited about being Bridgette’s maid of honor was throwing her bachelorette party. Or rather, her bachelorette parties! Why yes, this incredible sister of mine is quite deserving of having not one, but two!, bachelorette celebrations. Double the fun, for sure.
Bridgette lives in NYC (at least for a couple more weeks!), but most of her college friends and bridesmaids live in North Carolina. Bridgette has an incredible bunch of friends in both North Carolina + NYC, so it seemed like a great idea to split up the celebrations so very few people had to travel too far or buy flights to get to the bachelorette locations! Plus, I really, really just wanted to throw two parties.. ha!
I headed up to Bridgette’s cute little apartment in NYC one Friday in March to kick off the weekend’s festivities. I even managed to pack a light amount of clothing in my suitcase so that there was more room for bachelorette decorations, food items, and, most importantly, bottles of wine! Yes, my suitcase with two bottles of wine made it through a couple metro rides, a bus ride to NYC, and a taxi to her apartment.
Whitney, Bridgette’s roommate at the time, and Karen, our childhood/lifelong dear friend, also were incredibly helpful in orchestrating events and food pickups! Since I was coming from out of town, this was crucial. Thankfully, Whitney could grab plenty of wine, fruits, cheeses, crackers, and the like, and Karen picked up the pre-ordered customized, delicious Georgetown Cupcakes in SoHo on her way to the party. I planned everything to be pink, navy, and gold (I’m just not a fan of the store-bought pink and black decor), and it was so fun making the decor and games coordinate with the vision of the bachelorette party!
I had never met any of the 10 or so girls attending Bridgette’s bachelorette party before (minus Karen & Bridgette, of course), though I had been emailing with them for months. I’d heard so, so many amazing things about each and every friend from Bridgette, and I was so excited to finally meet the wonderful women who help make Bridgette’s NYC experience so special and meaningful. She is incredibly blessed by such loving, encouraging, and fun friends in NYC!
Onto the party!
It was such a fun evening celebrating Bridgette!! Along with all of the good food and drinks + the lingerie shower, we played tons of fun games, including matching celebrating couples, mad libs, the Fiance Quiz, kiss the groom, sweet & spicy wedding advice, and a few more.
Then we went out to Stanton Social after the shower portion of the evening and continued the fun with celebrating the bride-to-be!
I hope B enjoyed her first bachelorette party as much as we all did! New York is such a lively, vibrant city & the perfect backdrop for this event.
One of my passions in life is throwing parties for people. I LOVE to have a creative, fun outlet and throwing a party of some sort for a family member or friend just makes my heart sing. Truly. I fall asleep dreaming of creative, unique, personal, and special touches to make someone feel loved or to really make an event stand out.
One of the first bridal showers (of many!) I threw was last Spring for two dear friends, Megan and Kate. They are both in my small group, and both got married in 2012. I decided to throw them a joint bridal shower at my home with a fabulous Tea Party theme!
Luckily we have a large, open, bright sunroom to begin with! I knew I wanted a Springtime, garden-feel tea party. I loved that the tablecloth was fairly simple (for a flowery design) and that the flowers were more heavily concentrated at the bottom of the table. This let the other table-top decor and the peonies (oh the peonies!) really shine.
I collected china teacups and saucers for several months leading up to the shower. Much of the china is really special, as several pieces come from both of my grandmothers! I found some additional china teacups and saucers at thrift shops.
I also incorporated lots of pretty hardcover books (thank you Penguin Classics), lanterns, mercury glass candles, candles, and a plethora of fresh flowers to finish up this Tea Party garden vibe. Everyone had a matching china teacup & saucer and namecard to complete the place settings.
Here is the (not completely filled yet) food table! We had lots of finger foods, cucumber sandwiches, cheeses and crackers, fresh fruit and veggies, lemon cookies, and a layered strawberry champagne cake. Yum! I wanted to incorporate the colors into a backdrop with the ribbons and hanging poms.
In keeping with the tea party theme, I served hot tea (with lemons, sugar, or milk!), sweet tea (I am from the South!), and lemonade. If people wanted, they could combine the lemonade and sweet tea for an Arnold Palmer, of course. I served the hot tea in the teacups, and the cold drinks in mason jars – tied with a coordinating ribbon and a polka dot straw! To me, the little touches really set a party apart.
We also played a lot of fun bridal shower games and opened presents. The shower gifts I made these two lovely brides (and most of the other 17 brides in the past two years!) were:
hand-calligraphied “Mr.” and “Mrs.” mugs
hand-painted mongrammed serving trays for their new homes
It was such a fun, memorable, and meaningful shower for these two, and I absolutely loved dreaming up and creating each little detail. I only hope they felt as loved as they are!
