This time last year I was executing my design plan for an awesome 15 year old’s “Un-Quinceanara” and thought it would be cool to share it even when all the blogs are currently featuring Holiday parties! OOPS!
When her mom came to me with this idea, I was very inspired in that she wanted the gothic “Tim Burton” Mad Hatter theme mixed with her daughter’s love for rainbows! Always ready for a challenge, I set out to design the invites first! I decided on a VIP pass-style invite that she could pass out to all her friends at school to invite them to her Soiree! It was too cool to see them all wearing the passes when they arrived to the party!
The event was held at a venue secured by the client before retaining us, so we had to work with the venue’s existing decor which did NOT complement our design plan, so we had to find creative ways to work around it. I embraced the vintage wood chairs and created a long AIW tea-party style table for the guest of honor to sit with her court facing all the other seated tables.
The whimsical elements were seen throughout the space with colorful butterflies and flowers mixed in with gothic black flowers. The cheshire cat (from the original AIW) made his appearance as well.
The centerpieces were MY FAVORITE PART of the design! Creating the centerpieces with oversized flowers, wood sticks in cool colors and HUGE butterflies that towered on the tables to create a nice height and scale to the really tall ceilings. Those were balanced with shorter cylinders filled with glass gems and a butterfly and lit from underneath with uplight bases and topped with floral pomanders.
Cool lighting was a MUST at this event. Once the sun went down, the whole room took on an AWESOME glow once all the lighting effects were visible. We used submersible Floralytes in all the centerpieces and on the cupcake towers, lightup bases for all the cylinder centerpieces, uplights and spotlights. We also used submersible light ice cubes in the drink containers on the “Drink Me” bar that gave a really cool effect to the already brilliantly colored juices. Top the cool lighting effects off with lots of glow-on-the-dark favor items on the favor/sweets bar…and this party was ready with the amped up “cool factor” that teens these days WANT!
Speaking of tall ceilings….try not to ignore them when you can. We lucked out and in this pace there were cool beams that ran from side to side of the entire room where we hung a bunch of multi-colored paper lanterns to create some visual interest. It looked amazing!
I moved into designing a collection of paper decor to complement the theme. The collection included our signature Lolli-tag™ bouquets, Lolli-tag™ cupcake toppers, candy bag toppers, Lolli-tag™ signs, table signs and labels.
Next up….the “Eat Me” Candy & Favor Bar….
The candy & favor bar was full of the birthday girl’s favs including Sour Puckerooms which just so happened to work perfectly…as they are sour gummy mushrooms! We also incorporated rainbow elements in the mix such as rainbow swirl pops and rainbow sour candy belts. Glow-on-the-dark bracelets & necklaces were available and various other favors. All of the guests absolutely LOVED this bar.
The focal point on this table was the cool gothic bling mushroom toadstool which I spray painted, added some sparkle and bling and was a SUPER COOL unique decor element!
The exclusive favors were handmade Mad Hatter bottlecap keychains and a vintage metal key placed inside gold wooden boxes. I placed these apart from the candy/favor bar to give it it’s own unique look. Just thought it looked more dramatic placed in a stacked position alone with one of the towering centerpieces.
The activities….What to do with a bunch of pre-teens? Well a live DJ is a must! Along with the LOUD bumping music, a spray tattoo artist was on hand to do air-brush tattoos and a pool table provided PLENTY of things for the kids to do.
We also setup a photo backdrop with a life-size Johnny Depp Mad Hatter for the kids to snap away their own photos. The backdrop itself I made with rainbow feather boas to give it that cool, unexpected texture and I provided the infamous Ikea frame and a few other props to provide for some funny photo ops!
I hope you enjoyed this brief “timeout” from all the holiday posts and picked up some cool ideas and tips for your teen’s next event!
The “Gothic Rainbows” printable collection from this event will be available in the shop coming Spring 2012.
TIP:
Lighting is key in an event that takes place after dark. Creative use of uplights (as you can see in some of the pics we used spot lights) to highlight photos, signs, centerpieces etc. We also used cool colored Floralytes in all the centerpieces and tucked them down in the glass gems too to give off a cool “glow in the dark” effect once it got dark. Lighting can quickly break your budget, so if you are on a limited budget, just be strategic in where you place a few uplights and sometimes, simply changing out the existing light bulbs in the venue’s existing lighting fixtures with cool colored lightbulbs or black light lightbulbs can provide an instant transformation!
Vendors:
Event styling & party printables: Soireé-Event Design
Airbrush Tattoos: Grand Celebrations
Very nice Tonya!
Ebony