you’re invited…

I was talking to a friend about parties once and she confided to me, “Hillary, I’m never the life of the party…I’m the life of the party planner.”  I instantly got what she was saying: For some people (me), it’s almost more fun to think, plan, dream, create, organize, and throw the party… than it is to attend the actual event. (Almost.)

Which explains why six months before my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah bash, my home office looked like a craft store on inventory day: I was up to my eyeballs in scrapbooking die-cutters, Styrofoam centerpiece rounds, ribbon, heat-embossing powder packets…and more glitter than anyone should ever allow into a household that has wall-to-wall carpeting. I am also intimately familiar with invisible ink (don’t ask), and I own a Cricut machine.

There were a few reasons for the madness. First, I love the satisfaction of making beautiful things myself—whether it’s a birthday cake, an invitation, a centerpiece, or place card. Second, it was a labor of love for my daughter, who’d worked hard all year studying Hebrew. Third, it was going to save me money. Lots of money.

High-end event planners will tell you that you can’t pull off a professional-looking party without professional help. I beg to differ. It takes hard work and lots of ingenuity (plus some good assistants when party week arrives); but it’s a do-able endeavor that will shrink your expenses significantly. My magic bullet lies in having a theme to guide my decisions (in this case, “travel”). Doesn’t matter if you’re inviting 12 gals in the backyard for a bridal shower, or masterminding a grand-scale wedding reception for 200; a theme—essentially the roadmap of your event—makes every single decision easier, from the food to the décor to the invitations to the music.  Not convinced? Let me take you behind the scenes of our shindig and show you some of the ways I saved….

Put Your Friends To Work…

Remember Herbie? The dear friend who schleps my turkey in and out of the oven at Thanksgiving? Turns out he makes an excellent TSA agent at the faux security screening center I set up at the entrance to the party.

• Bought his shirt for $19.99 at Burlington Coat Factory.
• Found the TSA patch on eBay for $11.
• He invested in a “metal-detecting wand” at Toys-R-Us.
• My brother-in-law the neurologist brought him the rubber gloves.

Create a Candy Bar…

Having lusted over the amazing dessert and candy buffets from the brilliant Amy Atlas, I created my own homespun candy buffet.  (Visually, it didn’t turn out quite the way I had planned…but I’ll spare you my post-party griping.)

• Old-fashioned apothecary jars—upwards of $60 from major retailers—were scooped up for $10-$24 throughout the year at T.J. Maxx and Marshalls.
• I was going to buy candy in bulk from www.candywarehouse.com, but turns out you have to choose expedited shipping during warm summer months (so as not to have ten pounds of melted chocolate on your doorstep)—and that made the cheap sweets, well, not so cheap. I turned to Costco instead.
• The previous Christmas, I found giant, candy-shaped ornaments in Target for $5 each. They went into the hall closet for eight months. Almost forgot where I put them.
• I illuminated the jars by standing them on LED light bases from Koyal Wholesale. (Owned them already from a previous party; even though they cost $28 a piece, I’ve used them over and over to spruce up my tables for special occasions.)
• Nashville Wraps was my source for take-home cellophane bags (100 for $8), which everyone filled with candy and treats.

Get a Paper Cut…

You can create invitations, place cards, escort cards, save-the-dates, menu cards, and more without relying on a stationery store—as long as you have some computer-graphics skills…or a really generous friend, like designer Jon Weiman. (I have NO computer-graphics skills, which is why he came to the rescue by changing the resolutions of stock images I bought on the internet, finding me perfect fonts, creating Kinko-ready files, and translating my ideas into print-ready designs that saved me hundreds of dollars.)

• I bought beautiful card stock and envelopes in bulk from Paper-Papers. For $12, I had them custom-cut the paper to size.
• I copied an invitation-design I found on the internet (yeah, yeah, I know), and had the guys at my local UPS store run off 200 color copies of my paper for less than $75.
• I made “boarding passes” that showed guests to their table by running off a design on card stock, then using a paper cutter to slice them into airline-size rectangles, and a corner-cutting tool to round the edges.

Front and Center (piece)…

Flowers on each dining table weren’t in the budget (and as pretty as they look, I don’t think centerpiece blooms are terribly creative, anyway); so the search began for something that would drive home the travel theme with a bit of bling for evening.

• Instead of paying over $10 apiece for centerpiece bases at the craft store, I bought cake dummies at Guild Craft Furniture for $2.50 each. They even custom-cut an airplane for me, which I glittered to death and attached to the big welcome sign. (I still do not know why a furniture company sells Styrofoam cake dummies, but I’m not arguing.)
• For centerpiece tubes, I went to the lighting department of my local Home Depot and purchased plastic tube protectors for $3 apiece; these were stuffed with silver shred from the Dollar Store.
• Fedex Kinkos ran off super-size print-outs of my graphic images, which I cut out and affixed to foam-core board in lieu of using traditional table numbers.
• Centerpieces were illuminated with tiny purple lights from Save On Crafts (about $2 a piece).

If you don’t want to kill yourself with craft projects, call Party Decorations By Marlyss–she’s the queen of decor and can custom-make and mail  anything you can dream up. Want to go the do-it-yourself route?  She’ll sell you the supplies so you don’t have to spend hours scouring the stores. I might also add that the woman is  kind and generous–she actually spent 30 minutes on the phone helping me through a centerpiece design that she didn’t make a penny from.

It’s The Little Things That Count…

I wanted my guests to feel like passengers on an airplane from the moment they walked in the door. I was hoping they weren’t fearful flyers. (I imagine my theme could effectively ruin someone’s evening should that be the case.)

• Wait staff—instructed to wear dark vests over white shirts—were given purple lanyards (69 cents each) identifying them as “Flight Crew.”
• They were given free rein to nag my guests about their seat backs, about stowing purses under their chairs, and to “bump” anyone ( who seemed to have a decent sense of humor).
• Hot airline towels—purchased from eBay for $4.50 a pack—were passed out before the first course.
• Party assistants were dressed in actual United Airlines uniforms, also found on eBay. (One guest, a former Northwest Airlines flight attendant, did not feel the service was quite up to snuff.)
• Sleek airline luggage tags from Wedding Favors Unlimited ($1.26 each ) doubled as place card and party favor.
• My good-natured DJ donned a pilot costume and played the role perfectly, instructing guests to check in, go through TSA, and then get ready to take-off to dinner.
• I drew the line at passing out Dramamine.  (But if it was sold in bulk on Ebay, I  probably would have considered it.)

Was this a low-cost event? Admittedly, no. But for a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, I was happy to ratchet up the style and fun factor by taking on many of the details that a pro would have charged thousands of dollars to create. The one place I didn’t scrimp? On the beautiful photography from former Clinton White House photographer, Barb Kinney.

I am tired. As much from posting this blog as from creating that party. So tell me about your best bargain bash….