At the start of the year I decided I wanted to host a themed party. Several ideas were formed, but the best and most obvious one was to hold a halloween party. Back in September I posted about planning for the party, and I’m happy to say that with the assistance of my housemates we pulled off one hell of a party. It was fantastic!
All up we had numbers in the vicinity of 50 people of so over the course of the night. It never felt crowded, but it definitely never felt empty either. I was lucky enough to have friends and family visiting from Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as friends close on the coast. C also had some of his mates in attendance, and combined with the number of friends and family of my housemates it was a well attended party.
We didn’t manage to get the smoke machines (the person responsible for it showed up to the party completely forgetting to bring it), but we did have some pretty awesome decorations if I say so myself. We had the bonfire area set up in the backyard complete with jelly wrestling pool (only one man was brave enough to go in though), a back room filled with a sound system, strobe lighting and dance floor, and a garage with a pool table and casual drinking area. We had it all covered!
Of course, the costumes were by far the biggest spectacle, but due to people wishing to remain anonymous I won’t be able to share all of the pictures with you. You’ll just have to trust me that there were some amazing efforts.
Keep reading to see a selection of photos from the night
The back room, and just out of sight to the left was the stereo system and the strobe lighting
On Saturday night my housemates and I are hosting a Halloween party that is shaping up to be a most awesome night. There’s only a few days left to go, and I’ve still got a fair bit to do before it comes around:
Finalise music playlist
Buy some red lipstick (will be used to scribble on the bathroom mirrors)
Buy black lipstick and nail polish for my outfit
Buy black shoes for my outfit (will also double as work shoes in the end)
Pick up a drum barrel for the bonfire out the back
Begin decorating the house (we have so much to do – hang lanterns, fairy lights, fake spider webs, blow up balloons)
Pick up both mine & C’s costume from the costume shop
Pick out and order costumes for two of my friends flying in from Melbourne
Make some halloween themed snacks for the party
Make sure the house is absolutely spotless before the party
I’m sure there’s a lot of other things that I’m forgetting, but that’s the gist of it for now. Saturday morning is going to be crazy, as I’m visiting a friend’s jewellery auction as well as getting my hair cut. I’m going to be rushing around like mad to get the house decorated as I don’t want my housemates to feel like they’ve had to do everything themselves (particularly since this party was my idea).
It will be great when I’m dressed, drinking and finally relaxing!
As a child, I was subjected to a lot of american sitcoms, like Married with children, Roseanne, Home Improvement etc. One thing shared by each of these shows is they all consisted of families with kids, and at least once a year they had Halloween specials. As a child I REALLY wanted to celebrate Halloween, but since it was traditionally an American thing the most we ever did was trick-or-treating a few times. I never attended any serious dress up parties and the parents never really got involved beyond dressing up the kids. My “halloween” consisted of an hour where my mum would humour me by helping me dress up, collect candy, let me binge eat the candy, then attempt to put me to bed (I was way too hyped up on sugar). When I got older, one year my mother offered the kids some Jenny Craig popcorn (that was hilarious) since she didn’t have anything else in her cupboards, which showed just how seriously our neighbourhood took the occasion.
So this year, I’m going all out.
My housemate and I decided we’re going to host a party, and it’s going to be awesome. It’s going to be a dress-up party, and since my housemate and I are hosts we figure that we’re going to have to be ultra impressive with our costumes, just to make sure we set the mood. Here’s what I’m currently thinking for my own outfit:
Because there's devil horns on top it's apparently the devil's wife
Gothic ragdoll
I thought originally I wanted to go with the first one, after all it’s incredibly grandiose. No better way to remind everyone I’m the host when you look that formal, and it’s completely unlike me since I never dress up. My definition of formal is something other than a hoody or singlet with my jeans.On the other hand, the gothic ragdoll one just looks like you could do a lot more with in the way of makeup and special effects. I really don’t know – what do you all think?
As for special effects and props, we currently have these ideas:
A fog machine (OF COURSE – it’s mandatory, and way more cheaper than I ever expected)
Writing on the bathroom mirrors with lipstick, something alone the lines of “I know what you did last summer” or “die”
Spider confetti
Light up ghosts
A zombie in the garden that’s motion detecting, so will freak out guests as they arrive
Purchasing some dry ice, making up a big bowl of punch then putting it in a bigger cauldron-type pot with the dry ice so it looks like a proper witches cauldron
Black balloons outside
There’s a lot of cool stuff to be found on ebay, so it’s just a matter of my housemate and I really setting a budget, planning for it, and ordering it. I also want to try experimenting with some foods and cocktails. I saw a cool recipe to make shortbread fingers that look like they’ve been ripped out of a hand, and if I can make some cool eyeball ice cube things that would be pretty awesome!
As for music and entertainment, I plan on having horror movies playing on the tv at home. Psycho, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th series etc. I know I’ll also be playing “Monster Mash” and “Thriller” on the stereo, but definitely need to research more “scary” songs (feel free to suggest some).
I love the Monster Mash, it wouldn’t be Halloween without it! Here’s a cool version of the clip with the super scary (ahem) Goolies!
My boyfriend, nicknamed on my blog as C, is 6ft 8 so I’m trying to convince him to dress as Lurch from the Addam’s family. Given he has the height and the super deep voice, if he was to answer the door and say “you raaaannnggg” it would be hilarious! I think he’d also pull off a brilliant Frankenstein if he opted to go in that direction.
So readers, what do you think? Which costume of the above should I go, or can you think of something better? Do you have any suggestions for food or drink I could make? Have you ever attended a Halloween party and have an awesome story to share?
There’s only a few weeks until our engagement party, and I’m a little bit nervous. Back in January when we organised where to have the party, I thought “I’ve got this, it’s going to be a cinch”.
Unfortunately, I’m fantastic at procrastinating.
The venue was finalised early, bonus points for me. Logical step would be to prepare the invitations and get them out immediately. Not so. I’ve only just posted out invites to family members this week, and with exactly 16 days to go that wasn’t my brightest moment. Friends were invited by word of mouth since the date was finalised, and told to keep that date free. But for the family members or friends that we don’t get to see often, I really haven’t given them much notice and there’s a high chance they won’t be able to attend. Negative points for me.
Originally we had planned on having a band at the party. My dad spoke to one guy, and he offered $450 for 4 hours. We thought “nahhh, we can get cheaper”. The next guys were more expensive, they wanted $500 for 3 hours. Then we looked at the budget, and how much we had managed to save with 2 months to go. Our savings targets hadn’t been met; something had to go. Thus, the decision was made not to have a band. Negative points for me.
Food we’ve got covered, easiest part of the whole process. It’s a late afternoon gathering, so we only have to provide snacks and nibbles. The venue gave us a list of options, and we chose what we wanted. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for everyone to RSVP before we confirm food based on numbers. So the food is covered, bonus points for me. Ideally, we would be able to provide an open bar for everyone so we can all enjoy drinks together as well. However, with the budget already being as tight as it is this just isn’t an option. I’m incredibly disappointed by this.
Then comes the decorations and photos and all that jazz. What does one do for an engagement party? Do we have to have some sort of a display of photos of Mat and I? I hate being in photos, so finding something I’m willing to share with people is going to be tough. Should I be sharing the history of our relationship in some sort of way? I’m completely clueless about this whole area, therefore negative points to me.
So at the moment I’m in the red. I didn’t give much notice for the party, I have no idea about decorating the place, we can’t have live music, and we had to cut the budget. After this party things will be kicked up a notch. I’ll have to start planning for a wedding. A WEDDING. A lifetime memory, something that you will experience only one time in your life (you can only have one “first” wedding, and ideally it’s your only wedding). That’s a hell of a lot of pressure. So I can’t help but wonder…if I can’t plan an engagement party and pull it off, how am I meant to plan a wedding?
On Saturday night my housemates and I are hosting a Halloween party that is shaping up to be a most awesome night. There’s only a few days left to go, and I’ve still got a fair bit to do before it comes around:
