As promised in one of my previous posts, I was going to tell you about my daughter's Sweet 16 party I had for her. I'm finally getting around to posting about it.
My daughter is thinking of becoming a fashion designer or wants to work in some type of fashion industry. So, I planned a simple, yet elegant "Design Your Own Style Fashion Luncheon." We asked the guests to create their own fashion style to wear to the party. We said it could be very formal, dressy casual, shabby chic - whatever they wanted - there would be a prize for the most creative, fashionable style. The girls really did a great job of dressing up in their own styles. My daughter chose a Simply Vera by Vera Wang dress for her own "fashion style."
I had a signature drink called a "Fizzy Virgin Strawberry Daiquiri" served in champagne flutes that I purchased at a thrift store for $0.50 each! As each guest arrived, I took a picture of her with my daughter, they lit a tea light in a votive holder and with their signature drink in hand were directed to our family room to place the votive tea light on the mantel and then sign the guest book.
For the guest book, I had pre-drawn an outline for a 4 x 6 photo, alternating vertical and horizontal, on each page. On that page, the guest would write a note and later their photo with my daughter would be placed on that page. (Haven't gotten around to doing that yet.) Surrounding the guest book, I had printed out various photos of my daughter at different ages to display. Also as the guests arrived, I had my son and his friend be the "waiters" and they passed Hors d'Oeuvres of carrots and celery sticks in individual cups of Ranch dressing and mini-crab cakes.
We played an "ice-breaker" game and then we opened the buffet. (My husband was the "caterer".) The buffet included steamed shrimp with cocktail sauce, mini-quiche, popcorn chicken, deviled eggs, ham & cream cheese ball served with a variety of crackers and bite-size pieces of watermelon. What do you think those girls ate the most? The popcorn chicken. They couldn't get enough of those babies.
After about 45 minutes, we played a trivia game. We had made up questions about our daughter to see how well her friends knew her - and do you know that her best friend did not win? Oh, well. When the game was finished, it was time for the gift opening. Later, we went out on the deck to take some group photos.
By then it was time for dessert. My daughter LOVES ice cream! So, of course, we set up an ice cream sundae bar along with my mini-chocolate fountain. The dessert was definitely a big hit. With the ice cream bar, we served brownies, mini-chocolate chips, mini-M&M's, sprinkles and whipped cream. For the chocolate fountain, we served marshmallows, strawberries and pretzels.
My daughter's color scheme was yellow and pink. I purchased yellow and pink paper lanterns to hang in the family room. As part of the decorations, I had taken a picture of my daughter and used it to make a mock-up cover of a fashion magazine. She really loved it. For favors, we used yellow take-out boxes, lined them with pink tissue paper and filled them with mini packs of M&M's, pack of gum, personalized lip balm from my Kate Aspen shop, and an anklet that my daughter made for each guest. We put the anklet in a cellophane bag with a label that said, "Made Especially for You."
All in all, I think it was a great success and a lot of fun.
