The Beatles Tribute

 
"All You Need is Love"...and friends, and wine, and a yummy dinner to make a great evening.  That's what we had at our last Monthly Dinner as I chose a theme centered around The Beatles.  They have have so many great songs, that it was fun to use them to come up with the party menu and other aspects.

Invite: I tried to incorporate a ton of songs from The Beatles into the text of my invite.  I used many of their most iconic and well-known songs.

Decor: I set my table with a red tablecloth and created a centerpiece out of borrowed records & handmade items.

For the Abbey Road figures, I just found an image online and cut them out the size I wanted using my Cricut machine. I created a wedge to make them stand up.  The sign I purchased from Amazon and propped it up on the center.  The large records I borrowed from my dad and just created The Beatles album centers using PhotoShop.

For each place setting, I borrowed my dad's 45 records and designed a label for the middle.  The labels had various Beatles songs, but I also used these as place cards.  Each label had the last name of one of my guest as the production company.

For the napkin, I played with the "All You Need is Love" song title and added..."and a Napkin" just for fun.

Making the wine labels was fun as I love to be creative.  For the white wine, I took a photo of The Beatles cover for "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and added white wine glasses in their hands using PhotoShop.  I then changed the text of the album cover to read "I Want to Hold Your Wine."  The background to the label that wraps around the bottle was the British flag.  For the red wine, I  used the song "A Hard Day's Night" and added "...I need Red Wine" after it. I added iconic photos of The Beatles on the part of the label that wrapped around the bottle.

For wine charms, I printed mini album covers to attach to each stem of the wine glass.

Menu:  Luckily The Beatles have gillions of songs, so I played with different ones to come up with my menu for the evening.  For the first appetizer, we started with Veggies and "Dip-La-Di, Dip-La, Da." I designed the menu labels to match the invitation with the British flag in the background and the Abbey Road walk on the front.

For a second appetizer, I served brie cheese with crackers.  I titled this "Let It Brie" after The Beatles song "Let it Be."

For the main dish, I served "Penne (Penny) Lane" pasta, and I made a spaghetti sauce with Dr. Pepper soda in it. This was to represent the "Sergeant Pepper" song.  The sauce was easy to make and tasty.  I found the recipe here.

Along with the pasta I served breadsticks that I twisted before baking to go with the song "Twist and Shout."  I used already prepared pizza dough, added Italian seasoning, and sliced and twisted each before baking.  Super simple.

The green salad I served represented "Strawberry Fields (and Spinach) Forever."  It was a spinach salad with Feta cheese, sliced pecans, sliced strawberries, and a homemade balsamic vinegar/maple syrup/dijon mustard dressing.

For dessert, I had an ice cream sundae bar with various toppings.  This went with the song "Here Comes the Sun"(dae.)

Favor: I decided to make "Yellow Submarines" as my favor.  I found eyeglass cases at the Dollar Tree and spray painted them yellow.  I also spray painted straws black and cut them to be the periscope.  I added mints to the side.  Inside each submarine, I put some starburst and some lemonheads.  These represented Ringo Starr and John Lemmon(Lennon)head.

We were a small, but fun group at this monthly dinner.  Always a good time to chat up with my friends while listening to fun music in the background.