Origin Story
Description
How it Could Have Been Better
Specs
The Three Overwhelmingly Cool Aspects of the Party
Image Gallery of the Night of the Event
Image Gallery of the Construction of the Event
Origin Story:
I asked my oldest daughter what she wanted to do for her Sweet 16 birthday and she told me she wanted to have a party with her friends. I asked her “What Kind?” and she answered “An Alice in Wonderland Party – you know – an Unbirthday Party – but like, Weird and Distorted. I wanted to make something that would be somewhat of a coming-of-age aspect to the party with music and dancing that the kids would like with an unconventional approach to decorating that the kids would find “cool” but still appeal to the child in them with the theme itself, the food, and the silliness of it all.
Description:
As I lived in the mountains, I wanted it to be easy for my daughter’s friends in Bakersfield to be able to go, so instead of asking their parents to drive an hour and a half to Pine Mountain Club and back, my aunt and I drove cars to Bakersfield and picked them up, then dropped them off later. I believe she had around 9 guests including her younger sister. The entryway hallway from the house foyer was blocked off by a Styrofoam brick wall. A child’s slide was put in the wall so you had to climb the steps of the slide and slide down into Alice’s world. The World was covered in visqueen (black plastic) on the ceiling and most walls, which was spray-painted different swirling designs in fluorescent spray paint. I built a small dance floor that had a “syke” – the dance floor curved and went up the side of the wall. Small Furniture was attached on the side of the wall – a table and chair so that it looked like you were dancing on the wall. My friend John owns a glass blowing business and was kind enough to loan a few thousand dollars worth of glass dishes, bowls, glasses, and ornaments – we very carefully used these for food and drink and decoration. I purchased a large amount of clocks and teapots from Goodwill’s in the area, as many as 30, and put them everywhere as decoration. I used a lighting truss I owned to mount a few light fixtures to light up the dance floor.
How it could have been better:
Simply that I wish I had another day to work on it – the things we planned took longer than I thought (when isn’t that the case).
Specs:
Date: April 17, 2010
Level Party: “B”
Food: Appetizers – taquitos, egg rolls, soup, other, plus an Ice Cream Bar – several flavors with every kind of topping imaginable
Drink: Non Alcoholic
Canned Music: Popular songs / dance songs of the day for young people
Live Entertainment: None
Staff: My father, aunt, brother, brother’s girlfriend, my girlfriend, and my girlfriend’s friend assisted
Staff hired: None
Actors: None
The “Three Overwhelmingly Cool” aspects of the party that we relied upon to make the party successful were:
This party was the first one where I was formulating ideas of what could be done to make guests really feel like the event was unique and special. I didn’t have this as a “rule” yet, I just did what I could to make the party fun. It wasn’t until I looked back on this event that I started to understand what mattered. For this event I did not have three things “decided” ahead of time that were what I was relying on. Never-the-less, the three things that made this party “cool” were:
– The Entrance slide down into the fluorescent weird Alice in Wonderland world we made
– The fluorescent lighted room, dance floor, music, and props
– The All-You-Can-Eat tons-of-toppings Ice cream Bar
