Hello all,
Well, I had a busy weekend! How would you like a tea party report?
I had planned to do a tea for ladies at our congregation back in January. Tea foods, fellowship, and the sharing of Scripture was the plan. 2:00 pm on April 22nd seemed so far off in the future...Ha! It snuck up on me, and two weeks ahead of time I started doing some serious planning. My mother jumped on board and we drew out ideas for tables...schemed about which people would enjoy sitting with who...and started shopping! In the week leading up to Saturday we did some cooking and crafting for the tea, and took a load of china/glassware with us to midweek Bible study. On Friday night my amiable eldest brother took me into town to set up tables and drop off the second load of stuff.
Saturday morning, my mother and I packed up the car (much easier said than done!!) and went to the Church building. Would you just look at how many supplies we thought we needed??
Note to self: Next time, take your grandmother's advice and have the tea party at home!
Things weren't going too bad. The tables were getting set, the food tucked away in the fridge. The morning was wearing away when we pulled out three tubs of silverware to sort through and find matching sets of forks, spoons and knives.
BIG MISTAKE.
You know what? People don't even care about silverware that much! We should have forgotten about the silverware and started icing cakes and making salad.
That silverware (I won't blame us) caused our tea party to be 1/2 an hour late! And it could have been much worse.
But the participants in the tea party were a lovely group of patient and enthusiastic women...I didn't hear anyone mention the late time! I did a fair share of the mentioning for them :)
At noon a friend from Tennessee who's on a trip to Oregon showed up, and we put her RIGHT to work. She was supposed to be kind of a guest of honor, and instead she spent hours and hours in the kitchen with us, doing whatever we needed!
Speaking of buffets and tea, here was our printed schedule and menu:
One of our tables
...The buffet being set up...
We shared our Scriptures after tea - the best part of the whole thing! and began on the arduous task of cleaning up (some of the guests were gracious enough to help!) We and our, ahem, *kitchen* guest of honor, were there until six o'clock putting everything back together. My amiable brother showed up again and took a load of supplies home, and we all retreated to the house on the hill to relax with our guest and her husband.
We had 11 ladies come to Afternoon Tea. They all loved it and took a favor home. We included the plants on the tables as part of their favor.
We are still eating on the tea party food, and enjoying it, too! We made WAY TOO MUCH, which makes meals very easy now!
Oh, and do you want to know how to get in your exercise? Have a tea party away from home! My mother logged in 2 MILES of walking while loading/unloading the car and working at the tea!!
Hopefully, this gives you some inspiration to maybe have a tea party of your own! Just...whatever you do, ASK FOR HELP and budget in LOTS of extra time for preparation!
Hope you enjoyed this post!
to God be the glory,
Miss Humphrey
Looks like a lovely time was had. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you.
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