Election Themed Wedding Fun

One of my best friends and monthly dinner girls is getting married on Saturday.  She and her fiancé had their first date on Election Day years ago, and she follows politics closely, so I decided to have a bit of fun combining an election theme and a bridal celebration/wedding!  It was so much fun to plan!

Invite:  I designed a fun invitation to look like a formal political candidate dinner.  I started with a bit of fun using the word BIDEN and the word TRUMP in my opening lines.  No divisions politically in this dinner party....all of us were supporting Nazly/Ed!  I tried to stick with political wording by calling our dinner a "rally" even though we were again on Zoom. My guests were "campaign supporters."

Party Details:  To hold a red napkin, I folded a piece of typing paper to look like an envelope.  I put in the napkin and designed an "Election Ballot" to put inside.  I added my friend and her fiancé to the ballot along with Biden/Harris and Trump/Pence.  I used the same wording as my official absentee ballot for the signature box to make it look a little more official.

I designed Nazly/Ed 2020 buttons for each guest to wear for our dinner.  I found the buttons at Michaels Craft Store and just popped in the design I created.

I also made small Nazly/Ed signs for each guest to hold during our dinner rally. I taped tongue depressors to the back, and we had fun showing our support for our candidates throughout our dinner!

For the wine, I designed a label to be like the gillions of political pamphlets we have all been receiving these past few months.  It let everyone know that Nazly/Ed support the Red, WINE, and Blue!

As a little gift to our bride-to-be (or candidate), I collected money from the girls and put together a nice wine and a wedding themed Home Depot gift card for our friend to use on their new home.  The tag read, Happy to celebrate your Red, White, & I DO!

Menu: Since we are still on Zoom with COVID-19, the girls are picking up their food and we aren't able to eat together.  Finding a meal that will travel well has been a priority these past months.  As usual, I tried to come up with a menu that relates to elections.  

We started with a green salad with cranberries.  To have it match politics, I called it "Lettuce Wrap Up the CRAN-paign."  Along with the cranberries, I cut cheese into small stars and added sunflower seeds.  I served it in a baggie for easy transport and put in a ramekin of raspberry vinaigrette. 

For the main dish, I served pulled pork sandwiches I made in the crock pot.  I called these "Polled" Pork Sandwiches.  I followed this recipe which was super easy and very tasty.  I used Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce and added a bit of coleslaw to the top of the meat before serving.  For buns, I used ranch rolls.

I also served Right and Left Wings - chicken wings in two flavors!  I made a batch with buffalo sauce and a batch with parmesan garlic sauce.  Each guest got one of each to represent both "wings" of government.

The final side dish was a potato medley of red, white, and blue potatoes.  I followed my mom's recipe that I normally use for baked potato bites which is just adding butter and seasonings before baking them in the oven for 35 minutes.  These are delicious!

For dessert, I made a chocolate chip and M&M cookie pie.  I used red, white, and blue M&Ms and sprinkles, so the cookie looked festive.  A bit of whipped cream on top with a few more sprinkles just made it festive.

Favor: I went easy with my party favor and bought trail mix already made to wish our couple well on the Campaign Trail (Mix).  I swapped out the M&Ms included in the trail mix with patriotic M&Ms to make it match the theme.   

It was fun to celebrate this amazing woman (and her future hubby) as our candidates for 2020. 

Wearing buttons and holding our signs made for a fun Zoom evening!  I wish only the best for these soon-to-be Newlyweds.  They definitely got an unanimous vote!

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!

Sixth Anniversary Gift

As you may remember from my Fifth Anniversary gift post last year, I like to try to give my husband gifts that match up with traditional or sometimes modern wedding anniversary gift traditions.  For a sixth anniversary, the traditional gift is candy or iron and the modern is wood.  Here is what I came up with:

I bought an iron bucket from Michaels and filled it with various candy bars.  I attached cute sayings to each candy bar for a personalized touch.  It isn't a keepsake gift, but it was fun to put together and come up with special/funny phrases for the candy bars.  Here are just some of my favorites...

 

You could totally use this idea for Valentine's Day or as a birthday gift. When my hindsight kicked in, I was also thinking I could have given my husband a candy bar a week or every other week throughout our 6th year as a gift instead of a one-time basket.  This may have been a better idea to keep the silly romance going all year long as well as spread out the tooth decay!!

I made the tags on Microsoft Word.  If you would like the file, comment below with your email address and I'd be happy to send them.

Happy Anniversary Honey!

A Little Naughty, A Little Nice

Looking to add a little spice to your holiday this season (and I don't just mean in your spiced cider!)?  Then this just might be the post for you!  With December only one day away, it is time to get the advent calendar ready.  I've been working on our family advent calendar with fun holiday crafts and activities similar to last years, but this year, I've decided to make A Little Naughty, A Little Nice advent calendar for my husband!!

With two young kids and full time jobs for both of us, it is sometimes challenging for my husband and I to find the time to have stress-free couple time.  I decided to craft this fun calendar just for us.  Since it is meant just for us, I decided to hang it from our headboard. Honestly...this was also so we wouldn't get so busy we'd forget to open one each day!! 

 
I painted clothespins in red, white, and greens and clipped them to a red ribbon. I bought two small packs of 6x6 holiday paper from Michaels ($4 on sale) for the rest.  I ended up cutting the paper to be 6x4 because I thought it looked better.  The paper pack came with the numbers that I just cut out and glued to the clothespins.  I decided to roll the paper, so my husband couldn't cheat and know what was coming! I even taped them!

I typed up the advent activity for the day and glued it to the inside of each paper.  I couldn't just write it because the stack of paper I bought was double-sided.  It was fun coming up with the days activities.  I was purposefully vague on some items.  For example, I thought we could decided together which of us would give the back rub and which would receive it.

Here's some examples of A Little Naughty...(only a "little" naughty for this post!)

 And A Little Nice...

As crazy as the holiday season gets, I think these activities will enable my husband and I to have a little of our own time and just enjoy each other a bit. I cannot wait for December 1st!  If any of my readers do this, please let me know.  Maybe I can swap out some of my ideas for yours!

*Another note: Just like I do with my kids' advent calendar, I keep a hidden list of the days in order.  This way if something comes up and I know we won't have time to fit the activity in that day, I can switch it with a less time-consuming day.  This is another reason why I numbered the clothespins and not the papers.