License to Drive - Sweet 16

Every month for sixteen years, the girls and I have been getting together for Monthly Dinners.  It is hard to believe that much time as passed by and that many dinner party themes have been created!  We've created some amazing friendships over the years.  To celebrate this 16 year milestone, I decided to theme my last monthly dinner License to Drive with decor and menu focused on getting that coveted driver's license.

Invite: For the invitation, I designed a large driver's license.  Although I was hoping to design it like the old school license we all received at age 16, I couldn't find a free background of it, so I just made a license that looked similar.  For the headshot, I photoshopped photos from our 16 years of monthly dinners making sure each guest who could attend was in at least two photos.  I shaped them into the outline of a headshot.  This took a bit of time, but it was really fun to look and remember the themed dinners they were from.  The rest of the invite had the party details, but was modeled after the order and look of a true license.

Decor: I used a plain black tablecloth and make two yellow road lines down the center with card stock.  I bought a small black tire to use as a centerpiece.  I printed the invitation out to set on top and made some car related signs to place on skewers stuck into the holes in the tire center. 

Along the table, I also printed out various road signs you need to know during the driver's test.

For each place card, I designed a driver's license to match each guest.  Some of the girls I have known since sophomore year, so I was able to use their yearbook photos from that year.  For others, I messaged their parents, husbands, anyone that I could think of that might have access to a 16 year old photo of them.  

For those guests that I could remember where they lived when they were 16, I used that address on the license.  For those I had no idea, I just invited a fun/silly address that matched their interests or something about them.  It was super fun to see these old photos of all of us.

For the place setting, I used the colors of a stoplight.  Red plate, yellow bowl, and a green napkin.  For each napkin, I printed out a question on the driver's license exam as a kind of napkin ring.

The place setting also included a DMV Road Sign bingo card.  In between the meal and dessert, we played a few rounds of bingo using M&Ms as our markers.

Coming up with creative wine labels was a bit of a challenge for me with this theme, but I settled on playing up more road sign and driver related items.  For the white wine, I created a label with a side mirror. In the mirror I had glasses of white wine, and the text read "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" with a "thank goodness" underneath.  For the red wine, I used a stop sign with "red wine ahead" added.  Above the stop sign, it reminded guests to "obey all traffic signs."

For wine charms, I printed out the same road signs used on the bingo cards to place on each glass.

Menu:  Coming up with a menu that went with a driver's license theme was challenging as well. I decided to go with a car theme of cars that a young driver might be driving.  I had a Toyota Corolla as my first car, so that was my inspiration and what started me on this thinking.  We started with a delicious salad I called the Ford "Fiesta" Salad after the Fiesta model of car.  This was a bed of greens with roasted corn, sliced red peppers, queso fresco, and Ford "Pinto" beans.  I made a dressing with Corona beer calling it Toyota "Corona" Dressing.  My menu card included these 3 cars.

Along with the salad, I made a chicken tortilla soup.  I called this Toyota "Supra": Creamy Chicken "Tesla"-tilla.  Tesla cars were definitely not around when I was a teen, but I am sure there are some spoiled teens out there driving one!

For dessert, I wanted to make something that went with the Volkswagen Bug as that was a really popular car when I was 16.  I decided to make mug cakes.  My daughter has been making them lately for herself, so I decided to try it for the dinner.  This recipe was a chocolate chip mug cake that you microwave for a few minutes and then serve.  I whipped them up while the ladies played bingo and talked.  I added a dollop of whip cream and a Volkswagen bug cupcake topper I made before serving.

Favor: What 16 year old, doesn't love getting handed keys to a new or used car when they get their driver's license?  I remember driving my parents huge Buick when I got my license, and even though it wasn't my car, it was nice to have keys to a car to drive when I needed to.  Making chocolate keys seems like a perfect favor for this theme.  I made two giant keys for each guest tying them together like a key ring at the top.  I made a tag I was originally going to attach to the keys like a keyring, but it covered too much of the key, that I decided to just attach it to the top of the bag.  The tag was a license plate with SWEET16 as the number.  The month and tag year matched those of the party.

This is such a great group of friends and although all 11 of us couldn't make it to tonight's dinner, it was wonderful that so many could.  Although my last minute planning on these dinners and details is always last minute and stressful, I do really enjoy this creative outlet and the time with these ladies once a month.  I am blessed.