Party Planning: The Menu.

Well, obviously our New Years Brunch is a trifold hostess affair. But I thought I would tell you what I'm going to be making, at least.

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you may remember that I've done this before but I will be making Red Velvet Pancakes - topped with whipped cream, hersheys syrup, and sprinkles.

Picture and recipe cred.

I will be making my Mom's famous coffee cake recipe which my sisters and I all love. Actually, I would be willing to bet we'll be eating some of that over Christmas in Indiana.

Lastly (for me, there will be much much more food) I will be stealing this idea from pinterest and making french toast shots:

Photo and idea cred.

If you're coming to our brunch, be excited. If you're not, well, I wish you were and I hope you're planning some yummy New Years fun of your own!

Love,

B

Valentines Weekend.

Saturday Night. Bern's foyer - it feels like a palace.

Aubs and I with our desserts.

Friday Night.

Tiffany, Auburn, and I.

This is the face I made when we decided to take the night off from fasting.

It was a great night to take off because there was quite a spread of food:

After gabbing and grubbing we finally sat down and watched 'You've Got Mail'.

Overall it was a fabulous weekend full of food, friends, and fun. No complaints here. Hope you all had an equally great Valentines weekend.

Dove Sponsored VIP Red Carpet Event

Dove Visibly Smooth deodorant and I paired up to host a party for this years Oscars. They funded the party, supplied most of the goodies for the gift bags, and materials for each attendee to do a giveaway! Why you may ask? So each girl who attended my party and each of you who receive one of my giveaways will know that Dove visibly smooth can actually cut back on how often you have to shave or wax your arm pits! What more could you ask for? Well, it smells great and keeps you from sweating also! Not to mention, moisturizes your armpits!

So whether you win one here on my blog, or buy yourself one you simply must give it a try. They made a believer out of me at my last Dove event and I now have a stash 10 sticks deep. They have made a lifelong friend in me!

So from goodies...

(Roasted red pepper hummus & Stacy's Pita Chips, chips & salsa, red velvet cupcakes, and of course the brownie bites)

To friends & fellowship...

To Oscar predictions...

And red carpet starlets...

To a few shocking outcomes (and jokes)...

To Oscar worthy jewelry (provided by Dove)...

And of course, Dove Visibly Smooth deodorant...

...it was an enchanting evening!

A special thank you to my attendees, everyone at Dove beauty, and the Oscars for a great night! Thank you to you, faithful readers, for following along. I hope you enjoyed the pictures, video clips, and laughs. Now, it's time to finish this entry with a giveaway! If you're an official follower AND you leave a comment on this entry, you are eligible to win. I will generate the winners based on numbers. 5 of YOU will receive a stick of Dove Visibly Smooth. Watch this video about the product, then comment for your chance to win...

Love,

B

The Party Planner Diary - Decorating.

If your venue (or home in my case) is already decorated, there's no need to go over the top with additional decor. My place has quite a bit of character as is, with black furniture, red, and zebra accents. As a result I chose to keep the decor simple. I lit my bar with tea light candles in red holders (from Pier One), borrowed candle holders and vases from a friend, and filled 2 vases with red roses and white carnations.

I found great party platters for the food at Home Goods in Lutz,

FL at reasonable prices. I also found a table runner (pictured below) on sale for $5. I kept my theme the same as my house and my invites - red, black, and white. You could certainly run with any number of theme ideas. Since last night was an 'Oscars' party, I could have gone movie themed with balloon bouquets (Party City has excellent ones) popcorn boxes for goodies, and a 'real' red carpet.

For a party about beauty products and VIPs, full of 10 of my favorite girls - I kept things glamourous and maybe a little 'matchy tatchy' as my mom says of people who get carried away with everything matching. But it fit my crowd, my place, and me.

Here are some pictures, a teaser of what is to come as I review last nights events!

Love,

B

Here you can see the bar with candles set out. I should have gotten pictures before the place filled up. Oh well. You get the idea.

Auburn reminded me that a fresh market by the spa we go to, sells a dozen roses for $6.99! I bought 2 dozen roses and a bouquet of carnations and made my own arrangement. : ]

Vase is borrowed from Aubs, who was sweet enough to lend me several great red pieces. The candle holders I found for, get this, 9.99 each at the South Tampa Marshalls. Score. This is also my $5.00 table runner. Love it.

Chocolate Footprints.

So tonight I set out to create the brownie bites for Sundays party. You have to make them a few days early to cut back on the stickiness. I wanted to try out my new camera and let you in on the chaos that was my kitchen tonight. Hope you enjoy the footage.

Love,

B

The Party Planner Diary - Timeline.

An important element to party planning is the actual plan! If you don't have one, make one. You cannot throw a successful party on a small or large scale without a master plan. Now, this could be one sheet of paper with a few short notes, or a novel depending on the event itself. But don't neglect a written plan. So many bumps in the road can be avoided this way.

As previously mentioned, my current party-at-hand is low key. The predetermined guest list of 10 is helping keep me from having to be a crazy this week in prep. I'm use to events of 1600-1800 people so this is cake. Mmm, cake. Anyway, keeping with my own logic that big or small, a plan is the key here are a few things on my list.

Decor (which will have it's own post at some point). I've made a list of what I want to order, from where and consulted a dear friend on the best place to get flowers (she had an excellent idea for this, a local market we use). I'm keeping it simple. I've pulled together (on list and in life) what I already have, what I can borrow, and have made a list of what I will buy and from where.

RSVP's. As previously mentioned you have to stay on top of your RSVPs! Today is the due date for mine and I was only 2 short of having received a response from every girl. One works with me, so I cleared that up upon arrival today. One I texted from my desk before the day started. I kept a list of who I invited, what day they should have received their RSVP and their responses as they came in (primarily via e-mail as requested but some were word-of-mouth).

I'm waiting to do my shopping for the event after I receive my allotted gift card from Dove to make the purchases on their tab. So when I realized today I hadn't heard back about the exactly delivery (again, lists people!), I shot at e-mail out at 8am this morning to make sure I knew exactly when I would be able to start spending the money. That will be Wednesday. I'm also waiting on that box because A. my video camera is in it & I'd like to start doing more video blogs and B. the goodies for my guests will be in the box and I want to know what I'm working with when I go to purchase goodie bags (another blog entry to come).

Also, I planned out a timeline for Saturday before the Sunday party to make sure I have time to pick up the arrangements, bake the goodies, decorate, and put the goodie bags together. It's easy with a party at the end of the weekend, to schedule up all your time and realize you have none left to actually put the party together! Beware.

T-minus 6 days til the Oscars and my own red carpet event.

Love,
B

The Party Planner Diary - Invitations.

Archaic arts are kind of my thing. I love to send cards via snail mail (yep, I own stamps and everything!). So, forgive me if I get entirely too excited about a paper invitation. As a lost art, the paper invitation is reserved almost entirely for weddings as of late. In fact, many weddings are going nearly 'paperless' as well. While I fully support the need for trees (palm trees if you live in my hood), I still believe the best invitation is on paper.

I didn't start my planning process in enough time (or with a budget big enough ) to have custom designed invitations. I went the less exciting but less expensive route of using invitations I purchased at Target. I picked black and white with a red ribbon since it's a RED carpet event. However, I recommend if time and money will allow, finding a custom stationary designer to handle your invitation needs. An example of a great one company is one run by a friend of mine, Krystal, who I met in book club. She's the founder of Notably Krystal. On her site, she has a whole section for themed parties. So in my case, with my theme being Hollywood, she could design something incredible. I sent my invites out 2 days after I determined the date of my party, so sadly that was an impossibility.

Hey while I'm on the topic, by being the 19th follower of Notably Krystal on twitter (@notablykrystal) I won one of the mini calenders featured on the homepage. I love winning things. I won a calender from Krysal and a book from Brunette on a Budget's blog in the same week. Must have been a lucky week...right up until the Colts lost that weekend. Blast.

Back on task. While invitations, custom or not do cost more than a 'facebook invite' they also place more importance on your event. You are less likely to get a 'maybe attending' when you send a card with an RSVP date. Not that this is error proof or that you still won't have an inconsiderate friend or two that are impossible to nail down (you're not fooling anyone, we know you life isn't SO exciting you can't commit so cut it out). If making your guests feel important and valued is a priority, a 'real' invite is still queen.

For time crunch purposes and because my Dove sponsored event had an exact number of people I can accommodate, I placed the RSVP date exactly one week prior to my event. Honestly, I could think of 100 people I wanted to attend, but my limits were placed for me. The RSVP date is set for March 1st, but I've already got 3 of my 10 RSVPs in. All a go. I'm off to a great start.

Happy invites.

Love,
B

The Party Planner Diary - The Intro.

You may remember from this entry that I was able to attend an event sponsored by Dove (beauty products, not chocolate). My fellow blogger Joy & I went to a spa day to learn more about Dove's newest discovery in skin maintenance, the piticure. Which was describe as a pedicure for your arm pits...

Not only did we have a blast hanging out with Rachel (who put on the shindig) but we enjoyed the process, picked up a new beauty regiment, AND walked away with some sweet free products. In the video from the entry I just linked too, you can see me going through my goodie bag. I use my Dove spa wrap when I go for facials now...instead of the community one. I also have several years worth of a stash of deodorant and honestly, will never use anything but Dove again. So overall, it was a great experience. As we wrapped up the evening and again when I e-mailed Rachel a copy of my blog post about the night I mentioned that if they were ever doing anything down this way again (she's up in Chicago), to give me a shout.

Ask, and you shall receive! Another gal from the same PR firm, Edelman, who represents Dove got in touch with me via e-mail last week with a new invite! After some e-mail dialog on Friday, I will be hosting a Red Carpet VIP party during the Oscars on March 7th, and it will be sponsored by Dove! I am insanely excited about it and growing more so with each and every detail I get from Kaley.

So, I've decided to do a series of blog entries leading up to the party, about the planning process. Since Dove is making my life easy, it will be fairly straight forward. I wanted to share with you because this is what I love! My events for work are obviously VERY different from this but events are events. I love them all. So this entry will serve to introduce what is to come, the party planner diary from now until the big event, March 7th.

Stay tuned & get excited.

Love,
B