The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is one of my family's favorite summer movies.  We must have seen it at least 4 times this summer alone, and you can often hear my husband and I quoting lines from this movie.  Since I love this movie, I thought it would make a super fun monthly dinner theme...and I was right!  This was so much fun to put together.

Invite:  I designed the invite playing with some of the lines from the movie to include in the text.

Entry:  For the entry I made a R.O.U.S. (Rodent of Unusual Size) out of a trash-bag. I stuffed it with a pillow and a blanket and tied a zip-tie  to make the head.  The eyes and ears are cut out of cardstock and taped onto the bag.  For the tail, I detached the hose from my husband's ShopVac. Easy and cute.

I also made a simple sign with cardstock and foam board to welcome guests.

Table Decor:  I had so much fun decorating my table with iconic items or lines from the movie.

The Battle of Wits makes an easy centerpiece.  I bought decorative glasses from the dollar store and spray-painted them black and grey. I painted a wine bottle black, found a large rock, and placed a white napkin on it to represent the tablecloth from the Battle of Wits scene in the movie. I filled a small bottle with powdered sugar and made an Iocane Powder label.  Added a simple Battle of Wits sign, and that was it.  It was a super inexpensive and easy centerpiece.

Some close-ups of the centerpiece.

I think the place setting had a couple of my favorite details of the theme.  My mom helped me make these Dread Pirate Roberts' head-wraps with black fabric.  They are pinned and tacked/tied with thread - no sewing involved!  The mask I cut out of cardstock with my Cricut.

The second favorite detail I came up with was the napkins I shaped into swords.  I bought grey dinner napkins, unfolded them, refolded them along the long edge, and them cut off the end to look pointed.  The hilt I cut out with my Cricut.

I set the napkin swords along the tops of each plate.

For placecards, I used the famous line of Inigo Montoya, "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die." Instead of his name, I put the guest's name and a fill in the blank.

I made wine charms to represent different characters/sayings/events in the movie.  I had the shrieking eels, the Brute Squad, twoo wuv, iocane powder, stormin' the castle, the Dread Pirate Roberts, and the 6 fingered man.

These are the wine labels I created for the evening.  A little Inconceivable Cab for guest's to take "Sips of Insanity" and an "As You Wish" white.

Above the side table, I quickly made this simple "As You Wish" banner for added decor.

For a little snack as guests were waiting for the meal to be ready, I had two appetizers.  The first was just a bowl of peanuts.  Fezzik is one of my favorite characters in the movie, and I love his rhyming throughout. "No more rhymes now. I mean it!  Anybody want a peanut?" has me giggling every time.

The second appetizers was MLT sandwiches. MLT's = Mutton, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwiches (the mutton in this case is turkey).  Billy Crystal as Miracle Max cracks me up in the movie, and I didn't think we could have a Princess Bride dinner party without serving MLTs. Since I didn't want it to be my main dish, I made bite-size sandwiches as an appetizer. I used sword toothpicks for added fun just because it went with the overall theme of the evening.

For the main meal, I made the three dangers of the Fire Swap.  First was the R.O.U.S.  To make these Rodents of Unusual Size, I grilled some thick round steaks and then added cardstock ears on toothpicks and set them on a tail also made of cardstock.  They don't look super fancy or professional, but they got the point across and gave us all a laugh.


Here's a look at one of the R.O.U.S. steaks close up.  I guess they look more cute than scary, but...

The second danger of the fire swap is the Flame Spurts that erupt from the ground.  For this, I served red, yellow, and orange peppers sliced to look like flames.  These are seasoned and then baked in the oven so that we could keep the shape.

The third danger of the Fire Swamp is Lightning Sand.  This was just a simple brown rice.

I centered the dessert around the Princess Buttercup character.  I mean, who doesn't love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, right?  This peanut butter cup cheesecake was very good, but very rich.  It has an Oreo cookie base, a peanut butter cheesecake with some pieces of Reese's in the center, and then of course more Reese's on top. If you like peanut butter, then this is the dessert for you.

Favor:  For a parting gift for guests, I bought chocolate covered almonds and put them in little jars.  I designed a tag for Miracle Max's  Mostly Dead Revival Pills to stick on the front.  Pretty simple, and easy to put together.

All in all, we had a lot of fun Stormin' the Castle and laughing at parts of the movie playing in the background.  Another great party with a fun theme!