On the First Weekend of March, My Birthday Gave to Me...

...a lovely tea party!

This past weekend was the lolita tea party that I hosted at my apartment. Since it was so close to my birthday, I essentially decided that it would be a birthday party in addition to being a Tennessee Lolitas meet up and sponsored the whole thing myself. Yes, it was a tad costly, but TOTALLY worth it!

I had been wanting to host another tea party at my apartment for a while, and since March was promising to be extraordinarily busy, I didn't think I was going to have time until May. However, I saw an opening during the first weekend and since it was still a solid couple of weeks away from the meet-up before it, I felt like it might be ok to plan something for the weekend. I immediately started planning color schemes and menus with my roommate Brooke and we set down to make this happen.

The cake was my biggest concern because it's such an important aspect of the birthday party. It had to be pretty and appropriate, and I believe that my cake delivers! I asked my dear friend Curtis, who is an apprentice to the head cake decorator at our local Publix, to decorate my cake and he did such a fantastic job, despite my horrible descriptions. I loved it! The main cake was strawberry and the cupcakes were vanilla with pearly and shiny sprinkles on top. So pleased!

The lunch menu included chicken salad croissants, mini quiches, stuffed mushrooms, sandwich spirals, and tomato, mozzarella, and bassil mini kebabs. The dessert menu was longer, including mini cheesecakes, fruit tarts, pavlovas, chocolate-covered strawberries, macarons, madeleines, scones, and lots of cookies. We provided two full fruit and vegetable trays and several beverage options.

On our tea cabinet we had Royal Bengal Tiger, Calm Rose, and Jasmine Green teas, and above we had pink lemonade and "fancy water" which is like water with lemon, only with lemon, lime, cucumbers, and mint.

Half of the desserts were on the bar, while the cookie and "easy grab" desserts were on the coffee table. The macarons went over very well, and I was so happy to finally find some!

The pavlovas were probably my favorite of the desserts. Brooke (who did most of the cooking) made these delicious meringue treats filled with a creamy sweet cream cheese concoction and topped with strawberries. Unfortunately they don't keep very well, because toward the end of the party the strawberries started to "bleed" and crack the meringue until they were stuck to the plates XD . Still, they were so yummy! Can't wait to try this recipe with other fruit!

When it came to decorating, we decided that aqua, pink, and white were appropriately my colors (because aquamarine is my birthstone and pink makes such a pretty secondary color, also YAY, BLOG THEME!), and bought the decorations. I knew I wanted a pretty, princess-y theme (repeat: YAY, BLOG THEME!), so I opted for lace-like patterns on the plates and cupcake wrappers, doilies, and, of course, tiaras.

They were a pain-in-the-patootie, but I really like the outcome of all of the things I hung from the ceiling. My other roommates and I have decided that we are just going to leave them up for a while, since they look so good and taking them down is going to be a chore.

Oh! And I got a new outfit and wig for the special occasion!

It's all Bodyline, but that's alright with me! I'm wearing the Squirrel Party OP in lavender and it's so pretty! Definitely one of the nicest Bodyline pieces I've owned, they did a good job with this one. I got the wig from Gothic Lolita Wigs, it's from their princess line (lol) and the color is Diana. The accessories are from all over the place, but primarily Claire's and Metamorphose. I don't normally go this pastel, but I love the way this coord turned out.

But I wasn't the only one dressed to the nines. My guests were spectacular, they all looked so amazing!

I'm so happy with the turnout, I had a wonderful group of girls to wish me happy birthday and it made me so happy! Really, I couldn't have asked for a better group of friends, both old and new, and I'm glad to see that everyone gets along and that we can all enjoy each other in pretty clothing.

My friend Sarah and I found ourselves accidentally twinning to the party XD . We are even wearing the same necklaces from Claire's, it was so funny! I love it, though, we look fantastic!

As guests needed to leave, I handed out little gift bags that I made with a token of my appreciation at their attendance. It wasn't much, but everyone happily received one (and I sent several with girls to give out to other friends who weren't able to attend).

The whole thing was totally awesome, and most of it wouldn't even be possible without the help of this man:

That's my boyfriend Josh. He really helped me put all of this together and even helped serve as photographer at the event while I was busy being a hostess. He was awesome, even if he kept taking pictures of me looking like this:

Over all, this event was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who came, thank you to everyone that helped, and oh my gosh, all of you people are amazing! However, March has only just begun and I have plenty of other things to keep me busy so that I'm not too sad that it's over! Stay tuned for more articles about the events or March and maybe I'll finally put out a vlog soon!

XOXO

♥ Princess Kisha ♥