Pina Colada and Henna party details (part I)

I have been always a fan of planning parties; a special theme with decorations, food, activities and all. As I went on and on about the "Henna party" for my niece which took place this summer, I am now feeling relaxed enough to write this post (part 1) to share with you how we planned this part.

The key in planning any party is.....Planning ahead!! I am not exaggerating if I say that we started thinking about this party in December of last year. Why so early?! The other involved parties including the bride and her family live in Canada while the party took part all the way here in Jordan. The other reason was we wanted to plan something really special, different and personal. I personally believe that planning ahead can help you save you money just as much as it saves time. When you know what decorations you want, you can easily get them on sale or work on crafting them like we did in some parts for this party. 

The steps where:

1. The theme: We choose Arabian nights. It was very appropriate as the time of the party was during the Holy month of Ramadan and after Iftar (the meal where we break our fasting). Once you choose the theme, the rest of the details like decorations, food, activities will be easier. 

2. The day and time: We knew back in Dec of last year that it will be after Iftar but we where not sure which day. We knew we wanted it in the Middle of the month, so people can attend as the last 10 days of Ramadan are very sacred and  important; people prefer to spend them praying.

3. Location: Since the party was in the summer, we decided to go with the outdoors idea. We are blessed with a big garden that is divided to three sections. A big one where we set the tent to host the activities, dancing, henna...etc, the food section and a section with tables and chairs for everyone to set and enjoy the food. 

Consulting with the bride, her sister and mother was very important. I needed to know what they had in mind like the color theme, the decorations...etc. So we started sending each other pictures we liked of parties we found online to get some ideas and see how we can get inspired. 

The final decision was to do a colorful theme; colors every where. 

I want talk much...I will let the photos explain how it all went...

Decorations:

This is the tent where we served food. I had tons of curtains at home that I was not using, so I offered to have these set the way you see above to give a dramatic look. The lights where bought from a special store (we used 200 meters of small lights for this tent and it was all worth it)

The tables you see, we already had in house, I have a big family in law and we do have lots of gatherings so we invested in plastic tables for all our occasions. The only part we did is we bought meters of nice satin gold cloth, had it cut and hemmed to cover the tables. (this saved money big time instead of buying table cloths)

My favorite part. These are recycled jars (tomato paste jars to be exact). Using a glue gun, we glued lace around the jars and inserted a candle inside which I got on sale from Ikea. 

The dramatic look this created was something else.

We placed them everywhere and in all sizes, big, medium and small.

Another lovely idea was these branches which we got for free, spray painted white, secured in a pot and poured cement to stabilize them in the middle of the pot. Spray painted the pot with gold and the result was 6 lovely pieces which we hung small lanterns on in all colors. The lanterns where bought from downtown Amman by the dozen at a great price. So here goes another idea that barely cost much.

Here they are in the back.

For the big tent where we hosted the almost 150 ladies (oh yeah..this was a big party). We rented a tent along with round tables (which you see above) and chairs. This was expensive but necessary... if it was up to me I would have asked everyone to sit on the floor to suit the theme....but many guests won't be able to do that due to age and many other issues...

Here is a look inside the main tent...

Now it is very important to say that this beautiful colorful setting in the front is our own work and was not rented. We ordered these special huge cushions (20 of them, 4 colors), bought tables and had the legs cut short to 40 cm height to create this look, bought satin cloth in different colors and got it hemmed for the table cloths and used every single cushion we had in the house to assist create this look. We also had lots of lanterns, which we use to decorate our housed in Ramadan, so we had these set as well. The lovely corner you see int he third picture is basically this...

This rack was used to hang these wonderful pieces, usually used for dancing and we used for pictures and as giveaways.. we placed baskets at the bottom with colorful bracelets, necklaces, tarboosh..you name it...all where used to take photos in the photo booth which I will talk about later on.

 The only things that we bought where the Tarboosh, the colorful dancing pieces and the bracelets. The rest where borrowed from every girl in the family :)

Tip: Don't try to buy everything, see if you can get somethings borrowed or use what you have on hand to create a great look and save money. 

The photo booth was another favorite of mine...it was a masquito tent from Ikea, very cheap really. We set it up but realized that it kept moving with the wind so we had to bottom stabled with the white pipe you see below. Yet it was dull, so the mother of the bride used some pieces of colorful scarves they had on hand to create this beautiful look. We added some lights and I really wanted everyone who took a picture in this booth to know what was the occasion no matter how long the time passes by, so I had the name of the bride and groom engraved on wood as you can see. This was a nice gift that they kept for their home after the party. 

We placed a sofa inside and the beautiful rack with all the goodies hand on it, moved here when ladies started to take pictures. 

Another look at the area where we had the tables...

We also used bean bags which we had before to add more to the look.

Here is the pics at night...

I hope you enjoyed the decoration part ... I will share the food part in another post...if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask...we had a blast!!!

So as this is a food blog, I need to still share a recipe :) Here is my Pina Colada drink...try it, it is so good..

Pina Colada

Ingredients:

7 slices fresh pineapple (use can if you want but the fresh is better)

1 can coconut milk (I used light)

1/4 cup pineapple juice

1 cup crushed ice

Sugar if you like it sweet.

Directions:

It is important to have all ingredients cold to get a thick pina colada.

Mix all in the blender and enjoy...delicious...

  تفاصيل حفل الحنة لبنت بنت حماي في الاعلى بالصور واهم نصيحة لعمل اي حفلة هي التخطيط المسبق الذي سيوفر الوقت والجهد والمال

وصفة شراب البينا كولادا

المقادير:

7 شرائح اناناس (انا استخدمت طازج بس ممكن معلب بس الطازج اطيب

علبة حليب جوز الهند (انا استخدمت اللايت)

1/4 كوب عصير اناناس

كوب ثلج مجروش او مكسر

سكر حسب الرغبة

الطريقة:

تخلط كل المقادير في الخلاط وتقدم فورا والف صحة