Melody's Muse: Let's Get The Party Started!..(My son's graduation open house)

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Let's Get The Party Started!..(My son's graduation open house)

I'd never planned a graduation open house.

Who do you invite, how many will show up?

Being an open house, you never know!

How do you plan food-wise, seating-wise?

Should we do it outdoors? Indoors?
The thought of planning it outdoors and then it possibly raining, scared me.

So we had it indoors (and the weather was beautiful)...which was great anyway because we just had new carpet installed so we didn't have to worry about wet muddy feet!

Hubby told me, "Plan for WAY more than you think will attend. Nothing looks worse than running out of food." So I did. I made cookies, cake pops, and cupcakes galore!

I made a round cake as more of "centerpiece"...but also as "back-up" in case we ran out of cupcakes.

We had grilled sliders (mini burgers), quarter pound burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, macaroni salad, chips, and lemonade. I got this new lemonade dispenser and I thought it looked really pretty with the oranges and lemons in the base for display.

I did all brown and gold decor (school colors).

We decorated everywhere...

The entryway to the porch looked nice with the banner being gently tossled in the breeze.

We had the most difficult time finding brown balloons.

Mom finally found them for us and they "appeared" to be a nice dark chocolate brown in the package.

However...

Upon blowing them up, they looked more orange...or burnt sienna...

I didn't like the way they looked at all inside the house with our yellow/gold...not school colors at all. So we just tied them outside.

I made this round cake, as I mentioned above, more as a "centerpiece"...but also as "back-up" in case we ran out of cupcakes. I think it turned out pretty cute. I put the school mascot on top, and added cookies in "Evan" on the front and cookie pops in "2014" on top.

LOVED the look of my new lemonade dispenser with the lemons and oranges below in the base!

We cleared out the entire living room and made it an entire "party room".

I had three display tables...the center one had desserts on it and his "tri-fold" photo memory board. The one on the left had his diploma, card box, cake, and graduation photos. The one on the right had "school memories"...certificates, ribbons, trophies, sports photos, band memorabilia, Royal Ranger awards, and more.