This kind of party is meant to make the future bride feel special. It is also meant to help prepare her for life as a couple. She will be showered with items she will need in the home she will share with her groom to be.
Hosting a tea party in a tea room is an option
With tea rooms popping up all over now it can make hosting a tea party easy. Many bed and breakfasts tea shops and fine restaurants offer afternoon tea. They can often accommodate your party in a private room. This would make your food preparation a simple matter of choosing items for your menu. They usually have staff ready to help you with your tea party ideas. Making this choice will leave you more time to plan party games and make special favors for the guests
Tea party ideas for the menu
Here’s a menu offered at Sisters Special Teas Cafe in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (412) 787-TEAS (8327)
Afternoon Tea Menu
Crème puffs filled with your choice of shrimp or chicken salad
Tea sandwich assortment
Mushroom filled pastries
A variety of tea, breads, and scones served with lemon curd, Devonshire cream, and preserves
Teas and iced teas
Another menu offered at The Lillagaard Bed and Breakfast located in Ocean Grove, New Jersey 1-(732-988-1216)
Afternoon Tea @ The Lillagaard
Cheese & Crackers
Crisp cucumber salad
Assortment of nuts
Vegetable Cream Cheese with Sliced Cucumbers
Curry Chicken Salad with a Slice of Granny Smith Apple
Imported Ham and Swiss with Cranberry Horseradish
Sliced Egg and Tomato with Feta Cheese
Olive Tapenade with a Slice of Pear
Smoked Turkey with Cranberry and Dressing
English Scone, with Devonshire Cream, Lemon Curd and Preserves
Homemade Ricotta Cheesecake
Homemade Lemon Square
Chocolate Square
Grapes
Sliced orange
Chocolate Covered Strawberry
Selection of Tea, Cucumber Water
You can see it is possible to be very substantial or still elegant with less variety.
It’s important for the food to be delicious. The celebration though, is for honoring the bride to be.
Often a tea room will allow you to bring decorations that are unique to your bride. When my last daughter got married her colors were black and off white. There was a beautiful flower arrangement on Lindsey’s table that was perfect for her colors. The bridal party came up with an idea for the other tables that served two purposes. They had a florist make up several small bamboo arrangements, with three shoots of bamboo in each container. The containers were black. The girls grouped the bamboo in the center of each table. They made a very nice center piece for the party and served as favors for the guests to take home. A lot of the guests still have the Bamboo growing. Sorry to say while mine lasted a long time the bamboo finally succumbed to my ignorance of plants and turned yellow. While I had it though, it brought back the memory of the bridal shower every time I passed it.
Another special touch that is very unique to the bride and also the groom was something called Photofetti. Pictures of Lindsey and her groom were uploaded onto an internet site. In a short time bags of picture confetti about 1 inch around was delivered to be used on the tables. What a conversation piece. There were pictures of the two of them at all ages. All the guests had a good time remembering them at different stages of their lives.
Let’s consider some games for your tea party shower set a timer while the bride to be is opening her gifts. When the timer goes off the person whose gift is being opened wins a prize. If you’d like to have more guest participation here are some other game choices. Try a trivia game; give each guest a list of questions about the bride. The guest who knows the most about her wins a prize. Give special gifts out to the person there who has been married the longest or the person whose birthday is closet to the wedding date.
These are just a few tea party ideas to get you started thinking about planning for your up coming events.
