A traditional garden party is far from your only option when it comes to entertaining during the day. Consider a garden theme party instead of the typical Victorian style tea. These parties are so fun and give you endless room for showing your creative side! Don’t worry if you think you don’t have a creative side, Pinterest is always waiting with oodles of ideas you can snag for your own.
Themes to Choose FromImage via Flickr by Rennett Stowe
Some themes lend especially well to the outdoor setting of a garden party.
- Hold a luau, and decorate with lots of Hawaiian flowers, such as orchids, plumeria, and silversword. Guests can dress in sarongs or Hawaiian prints. Don’t forget the tiki torches! Traditional luaus are feasts, so be generous with your food and drink offerings.
- Create a Japanese garden party, complete with Japanese lanterns. A real Japanese garden is understated, so decorate with a few azaleas, Japanese iris, and lots of greenery, including ivy and mosses. Guests can wear kimonos, and you can serve Japanese tea with tsukune (teriyaki chicken meatballs), beet and goat cheese hors d’ourves on crackers, and fruit cups.
- Host a farmhand garden themed party where guests bring seed packets and planters, ready to plant with and for each other. Everyone should wear clothes for working in the garden. Of course, this is entirely your choice, but some great flowers for decorating with are impatiens, sunflowers, mums, roses, and anything else you love. Serve iced tea with jam and biscuits, pies, and tiny drumsticks–things you’d expect to see on a farmer’s table.
- Bring “The Great Gatsby” back to life, along with the glorious art deco and jazz era. Guests can dress like flappers, and you can fill the garden with roses, tulips, mums, or orchids, but choose flowers with colors that complement one another so one species of flower doesn’t overpower the rest of the setting. Serve wine or sparkling grape juice with oysters Rockefeller, harlequin salad, pigs in a blanket, and lemon cake for Daisy.
- You can choose a place to base your party around, such as Cuba, Mexico, or Paris. Or, take inspiration from books like “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or “Alice in Wonderland”.
What to Consider When Choosing a Theme
As you’re browsing through ideas for your garden party theme, consider your guest list. Does anyone have intimate knowledge of a culture or literary work you could use for even more creativity? It really pays off to be as authentic as possible. For example, if you’d like to host a Cuban garden party, research drinks such as daiquiris, mojitos, and pina colodas. Even if you serve it with a non-alcoholic soda water, you still want to get the fruits and juices right.
The Internet is a great resource for finding authentic crackers and breads difficult to make or buy at home. Also, take time to find out what plants or flowers are most realistic for the time or place you’re recreating. Details make or break the garden party.
Do Not Stress!
Though creating an authentic theme party takes planning and research, be sure to make the process fun! Get others involved to lighten the load and have someone to oooh and aaah at your discoveries. Pinterest, eHow, and other websites are godsends when it comes to party planning, so use resources available to you.
Parties are supposed to be fun, so keep a party frame of mind the whole way through. Enjoy!