An Affair to Remember

To my avid readers,

I apologize, I feel that I may have lost sight a little bit about what this blog is about. It's not a format for me to "blag" (brag/blog) about my wonderful parties, but it's a place where I can give people pointers on how to throw parties as excellent as mine and my friends!

So with that, I give you a case study.

A couple of weeks ago we threw our friend Jaime a belated 30th birthday party (long story). We wanted to make it memorable and grand. And we did.

What did we do?

We threw her a concert where all of her friends played a role or performed.

Here are some tips on how to throw an amazing party yourself...

Tip #1
Use your Friends' talents!

• Get someone to make the invitation who is artistic or a designer as their profession (we got Raven & Crow Studio to do ours!)
  
• Get someone to take the photos!
• Get your friends to sing or play a show!

Tip #2
Incorporte Live Music! Whether that be karaoke, booking an actual band, or having your friends play, it's all good! In the case of Jaime's party, I am lucky enough to have know some amazing musicians, one of whom, Rubyrae, organized the venue through her contacts and "booked" all the acts.

Tip #3
Personalize, personalize, personalize. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, there ain't nothin' better than centering an event and all its accoutrements around the honoree.

At this even, we personalized the sh*t out of it in the following ways:

• The cake. We put Jaime's face in place of "Bella" from the Twilight series, one of J's favorite book series. I used Cakes n Shapes but there are a few places in any given area that will do "picture cakes"
  
• The lyrics in the songs (You Tube video of Billy Motion and his guest rapper to come soon!)
  
• Trivia about the person with prizes that relate to the party
  
• The invitation (see above)
  

Tip #4
Use a ruse. People love surprises and people who love to throw surprise parties love to see people cry. Tears of joy of course.

Our ruse? Well we did tell Jaime something was happening on Sunday but we didn't tell her what. So a small group took her out for drinks beforehand and then said they had to pick some people up at a bar, and that bar was where we were!



(All photos courtesy of Dennis McKinley)