One of the bride's most precious memories before her wedding is her kitchen tea or bachelorette party. It is a day where she is to be spoiled and feel precious and loved by her friends and family. Not an easy task for the host to fulfill, but here are some tips and ideas on how to make this a special event for the bride that she will thank you for years to come.
• Romantic High Tea or Vintage •
Think old porcelain, macaroons, moonflowers or roses, stunning cakes, old-fashioned lemonade and everybody dresses up as ladies with pearls, lace, handbags, hats with feather, gloves and many more accessories. This is especially stunning if you can have this in a garden during summer or spring or a nice old-fashioned restaurant like Get Together.
• Madhatter's Teaparty or Alice in Wonderland theme •
Everybody wears an interesting hat with bobby socks and alicebands. Quite fun and you can have various types of sweets and cookies.
• Cocktail Party •
More suited with the bachelorette theme - especially a good idea if the bride loves cocktails and if she isn't the "tea type" of girl. You can choose a fun, private venue with accommodation options.
• Hawaiian Smoothie Party •
Ideal party if the bride is very health conscious and still wants to lose weight before her wedding. This also saves quite a lot of money on the cost of the food and drink. Each guest brings something fruity. Fruit juice, peanut butter, almonds and ice also works well. The guest can dress up in "hawaiian" like clothes and the bride-to-be can get a floral necklace with the little hula dress etc.
• Spoil her - then dress her up •
Get a good makeup artist or a friend to give the bride a basic makeup lesson (cost is about plus/minus R150 or a bit more) or have someone from Annique/Avon give her a nice facial with a full makeup session afterwards. The guests can buy her products from Annique - especially a great idea if the bride has already everything she needs for her home. Then afterwards either dress her up looking pretty in a ballerina tutu or adorable in a cat/bunny suit and go dancing. Not only will she feel spoiled and special - but the photos will look stunning.
• Arty Kitchen Tea •
If your bride has been under quite a lot of pressure and needs a little bit break from routine and she loves arty things - why don't you organize a workshop in either painting, mosaics, pewter, scrapbooking, cooking, pottery, raku or anything that is available locally. You can have the guests participate and work a theme around the specific workshop - like have everybody create something for her new home or even for her wedding decor. This is quite fun and the possibilities is limitless and it doesn't have to be expensive at all.
What to drink? If its a more traditional kitchen tea - try to have at least 3 or more variations of tea - like rooibos, english tea or earl grey and you have to offer coffee (not everybody likes tea). Other good ideas is to have is icetea or fruitpunch or even lemonade - especially if its on a hot summer's day. Try to have sugar with those coloured pieces in between or maybe some honey, lemons or cream to serve with the tea.
Not everybody like "sweet things" - so do have a variety of more "salty" things to eat as well - mini pizzas works or spinach muffins etc.
Everybody who is invited to the wedding should be invited to the kitchen tea, even if they live far away. The best would be to ask the bride who she would like to have at the kitchentea and ask her to make a list of everybody with their telephone numbers.
Today - most people send invites via sms or emails. However if you want to keep it traditional - there is many cost effective ways to send invites. A nice idea is to make a teacup out of thick paper and place all the details on the back. Remember to have directions to the place where the kitchen tea is held or provide your cellphone number so that they can call you. If the bride has open a wedding registry at example @home or any other place - you can also notify all the quests where to buy her presents.
Even though you might know most of the guests, there is always a possibility that people might feel awkward, so chooce a nice icebreaker to get the talking going and make sure that everybody knows where the bathroom is. Some great examples include -
You can visit Typepad website for more ideas.
Buy a pretty and small notebook - where the quests can write a nice message for the bride or her groom and please remember a Camera and take lots of pictures. You must also have somebody that can keep note of which presents came from which guest - to help the bride if she wants to write thank you notes afterwards.
Please say thank you to the lady who organized your kitchen tea or bachelorette party. As well as any of her assistants.
You can give them a gift or something else in return - here is some ideas:
For more Kitchen Tea Ideas, visit www.kitchenteaideas.co.za
Do you have a great idea for a bachelorette party or kitchen tea - please feel free to send us an email.
