Invite: I crated a simple black, white, and red invitation with gold glitter accents. I used images of a top hat, bunny, wand, and cards to pull in iconic magician props. To tie in the "show" aspect, I put the details as a showtime and added the phrase "The Greatest Gathering of Girlfriends Ever Seen!"
For the table, I used a black tablecloth with white and red plates.
As a centerpiece, I set down gold glitter card stock and placed a top hat with a magic wand and a stuffed bunny on top. I made an arch of cards gluing them to a large zip tie and then put the ends of the zip tie into small glasses filled with dice and red tissue paper to hold it in place.
I added fake bouquets of red flowers, cards, and dice on each side.
I purchased a deck of mini cards from Amazon, lightly glued 3 together, and placed each group of three on a folded napkin.
I created place cards by using hot glue on extra large dice and then adding the guest's name to the top. I added an alliteration magician title for each guest.
I created magical wine labels for my red and white wine. I titled the cabernet sauvignon Abraca-Cabernet with a tag line of "Now You See It...Now It's Gone" keeping the same background design as the invitation. I swapped out the bunny's playing card for a red wine glass. For the white wine, I titled it The Vanishing Vino with a tagline of "White to Wand-erful" adding a wand and a bottle of white wine ready to "vanish" inside a top hat.
I used more cards from the mini deck I purchased as wine charms.
Added a little decoration to my everyday HOME sign.
Menu: Our appetizer was caprese skewers - tomato, mozzarella ball wrapped in a basil leaf, and then drizzled with balsamic and oil. I called these Pick-a-Card Caprese with the intention of adding one of the mini cards to each skewer...as you can see in the photo, I got so busy I forgot to add the cards!
Our main dish was pulled pork sandwiches. I made the shredded pork in the crock pot, so I had less stress getting ready after getting home for work. I followed this recipe from Recipe Tin Eats for the rub and the cooking/browning portion. I skipped the homemade BBQ sauce and just used Sweet Baby Rays. I purchase premade cole slaw to add and brioche buns. For a magic appropriate title, "Pulled from the Hat Pork - The Disappearing Swine!"
One side was green beans I baked in the oven. Titled these "The Great Veggie-ni."
I also served baked mac and cheese. Since I taught all day and wouldn't get home from work until a couple hours before the party, I had to make these the easy way. I found a recipe that used boxed mac and cheese that you cooked al dente and then just added breadcrumbs (I chose Panko breadcrumbs), Parmesan, and seasonings before baking it. The magic title for these was "Abraca-Delicious Mac and Cheese."
I had to pull a bunny from a hat somewhere in my menu, so of course it was dessert. We had bunny cupcakes with just the top of the head and ears showing. Simple to make with just a large marshmelow cut diagonally and then dipped in pink sugar. The black cupcake wrappers were to help it look like a magician's hat. The plan was to add a black card stock circle to the top of the wrapper to make it look like an upside down hat, but I ran out of time to get them cut. We had a mini chocolate pretzel wand on the top for added fun.
Favor: Large pretzel rods dipped in chocolate to look like magic wands became my party favor. I placed them in a bag of Trix cereal and called them Magic Trix! I thanked my guests for "making the magic happen."
Everything about this dinner was magical - the friends, the food, and the fun details that all came together. Hope you liked reading about the party!
