This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you click on a link I will recieve a small comission. This costs you nothing extra and I only promote products I use and love! You can read our full disclosure here
As you read this post, you’ll notice a lot of bolded words, some that highlight pink and link to other posts and products, and others that don’t do anything. That’s because I am still writing and working on the posts those words go to! As these posts get published, I’ll be updating this post until all the projects are complete! Subscribe to my Newsletter or Follow me on Facebook to keep updated on when I post new content!
If there’s one kind of party I love more than any other, it's a good theme party! When I was a child I absolutely adored theme parties so as I began the adventure known as my thirties I knew there was only one way to start it, an over the top fete after one of my personal favorite subjects, Greek Mythology! When I suggested the idea to my Omaha bestie to see if the group would be interested, I learned that the entire group were huge fans! Needing no further encouragement, my friends spent hours making costumes and I spent mine happily making decorations, crafting cocktails, and decorating my house for an epic Goddess of Spring 30th Birthday Cocktail Party.
While my favorite Goddess shifts from time to time, the one that I always fall back to and love the most is Persephone, Goddess of Spring. The old myths go that she was in charge of painting the colors of flowers, so I wanted as much of my decor as possible to be flower themed! I started with designing different Silk Flower Centerpieces and Garlands to give my bars and dinner tables the feel of an over the top springtime celebration, and they turned out even better than I thought they would!
This was my first time working with silk flowers, so I wasn’t sure what the quality would be like, but I absolutely adored all the flowers I bought! I used an online company, Afloral, for my silk flowers and not only were they beautiful quality flowers and a large selection, they have flowers in a variety of price ranges, ship quick, and have new seasonal options coming out every couple months. Better yet, being able to have the flowers earlier than fresh flowers meant I had more time to work on them and now I can keep them forever for my future Springtime Brunches and Parties!
For my wine and charcuterie area, I made an overflowing Large Cherry Blossom and Peony Centerpiece while accenting my Dinner Cocktail Bar with a complementary Small Peony Centerpiece and a Eucalyptus Greenery Garland decked out in fairy lights! I absolutely adored my centerpieces, and now can’t wait to start experimenting with the flowers to design Bridal Flowers and Bridesmaid Bouquets. But my favorite of my silk flower decorations has to be my Floral Garlands, which I used to decorate a long candlescape down my dinner table.
When I started with designing the Dinner Table, I wanted it to be a long banquet style table in character with the opulent feasts one would imagine the greeks and the gods to frequent, all with a floral springtime vibe, after all this is Persephone’s Party! Using my Silk Flower Eucalyptus Garlands, some Glass Cylinder Candle Holders left from my wedding, and a couple strands of fairy lights started the table with a beautiful blooming glow! This beautiful candlescape was perfectly accented with Gold Chiavari Chairs to give an upscale Greecian vibe. Finally, I set each place setting in Gold Rimmed China with Gold Silverware, complete with a dapper rolled Gold Napkins wrapped in a special gift from this Goddess to her guests!
This last year I started working more with resin, and for this party I struck out specifically into UV resin, creating accessories out of pressed flowers for my guests to take home with them. The gentlemen got some dapper Pressed Flower Tie Clips while the ladies walked away with beautiful Pressed Flower Necklaces, a perfect favor for this floral fete! All of my friends were super impressed with them, and they are the perfect projects to add to my Bridesmaid Gifts and Groomsmen Gift Projects.
I didn’t use Silk Flowers just in Decorations, but also in crafting a fabulous Cherry Blossom and Peony Silk Flower Crown for my own costume, because as you may have guessed, I went to my party as Persephone! Despite being over the top the crown was very light, and I was able to simply clip it to a couple places on my head and it stayed put all night! Well thought of on my part, because let’s just say this group of Gods and Goddesses had a lot of fun thanks to all the cocktail bars I had tucked all over the house!
In the true style of an over the top thirtieth birthday as well as a Greek Gods Theme, I had a variety of bars with cocktails I designed and made myself, all themed after my favorite Goddess and my favorite cocktails! Like any good party, we started with a variety of wines at our Wine and Charcuterie Station. I provided the wine and one of my besties gifted me an absolutely GORGEOUS charcuterie tray made from a local chef! Complete with pomegranate seeds, chocolate, a variety of cheeses, and pockets of grapes and other fruits, it was beloved by all and especially by me, who then had cheese and the homemade bread to snack on all day when I was cleaning up the next morning! It was also the perfect appetizer to lead us into our next bar in the Dining Room, our Dual Whiskey and Gin Cocktail Bar.
To enjoy with the craft cocktails; I made an Italian Themed Dinner Bar complete with two types of homemade pizza rolls, Caesar salad, and a Cheese Tortellini Pasta Bar. With the Cheese Tortellini, I made two sauces, a slew of meatballs, and set out fresh cheese, basil, pesto, and toppings. Everyone loved it and it was also much easier to prep than other food bars I have tried in the past, so I’m looking forward to trying it again and seeing what kind of food I can prep and present bar style! The added bonus for a pasta bar is that it is also much easier for your vegetarian friends, of which I have many that come to my parties and I like them to have options too!
This is where I got to start really getting into cocktail designing! I love whiskey whereas my bestie and my husband love gin, so it made perfect sense to have a bar featuring both a gin and a whiskey option. For this Dual Cocktail Dinner Bar, our whiskey cocktail connoisseurs enjoyed a warming floral Honey Hibiscus Old Fashioned while my ladies of gin (basically everyone but me and the boys), gushed over the Limoncello Citrus Gin & Tonic, fittingly named Suitcase of Summer after another place Persephone makes an appearance, the musical Hadestown!
I had designed an Old Fashioned Bar before for a holiday party, and in doing so I found out it’s much easier, and appreciated by guests, to premix cocktails. In that spirit, I bought some Swing Top Bottles on Amazon, designed the bottles some fun Vinyl Decal Labels, and made all the cocktails the night before to store in the fridge. Out of the three cocktails I designed, while all were beloved and we got through almost two bottles of all of them, the favorite and most drank by all was the Limoncello Citrus Gin & Tonic, we had three bottles made and still needed more!
Did you notice I said there were three cocktails I designed? While the Dinner and Appetizer Area were springtime floral themed, they aren’t the only part of the Persephone myth and we head downstairs to our Speakeasy style Basement Bar for the rest! Persephone was the Goddess of Spring, but she was also known as the Queen of the Underworld because she was kidnapped by Hades when he first saw her and, and by eating six pomegranate seeds, required to spend part of her time in the Underworld.
As this is the case, an Underworld style bar area was a must, and it was perfectly complemented by our final bar, a Gin Martini Bar. While it had the option of the classic Dirty Martini, I had also premixed a new Gin martini of my own, lovingly named Fates Dirty Martini, as an ode to the Goddess’s time in the Underworld and for the pomegranate seeds I used to infuse the vermouth for the cocktail.
Now there’s no better way to have a martini than in a chiq bar, so I turned my basement into one with an underworldly lighting and decor vibe. As you enter the seating area, you pass under a curtain of fairy lights and vellum flowers I cut out with my craft cutter, gathered in groupings to make it feel like the flowery vines of a flowering tree. After all, just because spring flowers don’t grow in the dark doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t have painted her mark somewhere (and maybe I got a little inspiration from my favorite Persephone themed Webtoon, Lore Olympus)!
After passing under the flowers, you enter a beautifully lit bar area, thanks to some Black Chiavari Chairs, Cocktail Tables, and couches with covers. Since I wanted some sort of simple centerpiece on my bar tables, I went with a wrapped trios of wine bottles with battery operated fairy lights for a little speakeasy style décor for the tables, with a lit glass chessboard on the back table for my Queen's Gambit friends! Completing the room was a gorgeous galaxy light provided by my husband and his office and a backlit colored Tissue Paper Circle Photo Booth. The room was finished with what every birthday party needs, Chocolate Nutella Cupcakes on an over the top Golden Tea Tray, exactly the way a Goddess wants to enjoy her dessert!
For my parties, I always end up buying Couch Covers, Table Linens, and Chair Covers on Amazon, but for things like giant tea trays and tables, I have a local rental company I use. After all, I love Chiavari Chairs but I can’t afford to keep a dozen of them in my house all the time! Rentals are generally very affordable and especially nice for when you need to plan upscale special events, such as parties and weddings. To find rental companies in your area, just google local Event Rentals to see what's available near you! You can also rent things like table linens, but as I want to be throwing parties every couple months, I want to build a Party Closet that's full of my favorite colors in Linens, Napkins, and Decor so I can use them again in future parties, just combining them in new ways!
After a night of celebration, gifts, cocktails and an epic time, we all spent the next day recovering, reminiscing, and looking forward to all the fun times we will have together this summer, and I can’t wait to start planning my next event! This Goddess of Spring Party was beloved by all, a wonderful way to start my thirties, and the perfect stepping stone for my parties and projects in the future!
OUR POSTS FOR THIS PARTY:
OUR PINS FOR THIS POST:
