Catchup Post # 3 Jennifer's 30th Birthday Party

This year Jennifer turned 30 and her biggest wish was to have a big party for her birthday.  So that is what we did!  It took a little while to decide what type of party which made for a short time to plan - but we pulled it all together and the party was wonderful!  A few folks helped out..  James helped out by getting Jennifers requested cake - Pecan Praline Ice Cream Cake and he also got Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake.  Nick and Stephanie brought a veggie appetizer and a veggie entree and help with pictures (hopefully Nick will share copies with us!).

The details..
I was surfing the Evite sight and got inspired by an invitation that I eventually sent out.  Here is the invite - I have always wanted to decorate with paper laterns and this was the perfect opportunity.  I got different colors like the invite; found an online sight with great prices and fast shipping (http://www.paperlanternstore.com/).

Since there was the chance that we would have up to 20 people; I decided to order a table cloth for my table with the extenders in (don't have one and it is impossible to find my size table).  I found a great site with great prices that made custom order table cloths and quick shipping (http://www.wholesale-table-linens.com/index.html).  I ended up getting 2 - a brown linen for thanksgiving and a taffeta silver with embroidered circles; and 1 for the small table that Nick loaned us (light grey).

In typical Kristy fashion I went all out.  Different color napkins (folded as crowns as suggested by Aric), tea light candles with tissue paper covering them in different colors, laterns on the kitchen pendant light (didn't get a good picture, they were from World Market) and tissue paper on the chandelier lights.

Food - we went with a Cajun Creole theme, one of Aric's favorite meals - Creole Cordon Bleu, Dirty Rice, no Meat Diry Rice, and Rolls.  We had a few appetizers and I also made puff pastry with rasberry filling and dipped in dark chocolate, and ones filled with lemon curd.  Everything turned out spectacular!

The final thing I did for Jennifer was to setup a photo booth for Jennifer to take pictures with all of her guests.  Aric and I both enjoy photography; a long time ago we purchased backdrops and build a PVC structure to hold the backdrops - this worked out great!  I also purchased paper latern string lights to have in the background.    We set up a light and tuned the camera to that light.  We put the camera on a tripod and had the remote to take the pics.  Unfortunately, there seemed to be some issues with the auto-focus; but most of the pictures came out good,  Here are some of the pictures.

Jennifer & Kristy

James & Jennifer

James & Jennifer

All the party guests!