Party Planning
- Theme Party Ideas
- Roaring 20's Theme Party
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When the
Good Times Rolled!
Bring your guests back to the time of financial
prosperity with a Roaring 20s theme party. You will find
everything you need to have a good time in the sections
below.
Have a great party!
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Setting
the Tone:
The key to pulling off a coordinated
event: Evoke your theme throughout the affair. Whether that
theme is as general as a season or a feeling, or as specific as
a special flower, it should be the subtle thread that ties
everything together. Your location, invitations, flowers, menu,
cake, and favors should all cleverly reflect one common concept.
Then, get as creative as you can!
A Jazz Age celebration
can take place almost anywhere, including any of an array of Victorian
establishments that are commonly used as celebration sites. Think
mansions with dark paneled wood, historical house museums of the period,
an original 1920's building in Art Deco style like a restaurant with
elaborate chandeliers. You might even consider a hotel with a giant
ballroom.
Make sure that the venue you
select has a vintage look, not just on the outside but also in the room
where the party will be held, a cocktail bar, and a dance floor large
enough for guests to really ham it up. If the room truly has an
authentic feel, then few other decorations are needed, just add a few
palm trees, low lighting and atmospheric smoke created with a fog
machine and you've got the perfect 1920's speak easy.
Set the stage for your gangster & moll bash
by arriving in a rented vintage car from the 1920s or just park one
outside your venue entrance. Hire Valets to park your guests cars and
have them dressed in vintage clothing.
Invitations
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Use an Art Deco
invitations.
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Print the invitation as
an illegal admission ticket to a speakeasy, complete with secret
password.
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Invites with images of
long, slender cigarette holders and cocktail glasses.
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Invites with a picture
or collage of a 'flapper' headband with a real feather.
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Invites with a 1920's
vintage car design.
Top
Decorations
Make sure that the venue you
select has a vintage look, not just on the outside but also in the room
where the party will be held, a cocktail bar, and a dance floor large
enough for guests to really ham it up. If the party room truly has an
authentic feel, then few other decorations are needed, just add a few
real or artificial palm
trees, low lighting and
atmospheric smoke created with a fog
machine and you've got the perfect 1920's speak easy.
Use black & white solid
colored tableware. Place bottles of wine on
each guest table, wrought iron accents such as (wine holders,
candle
holders, baskets).
Set out Chianti bottles.
Insert candles into opening, light them and drip the wax down the sides.
Think mood lighting - candles, candles,
and more candles.
* Create custom glassware by painting a simple pattern onto a plain wine glass, using egg whites and a small paintbrush – immediately sprinkle fine sugar over the egg white pattern.
* Fill drinking glasses – stemless wine glasses work great – with decorative stones, then place a tea light inside. Or, turn traditional wine glasses upside down and use them as candleholders. Use different heights and group them together for an elegant look. There is no such thing as too many candles. Candlelight is very flattering on everyone.
* Fill martini, wine and brandy glasses with marbles and add a tea light.
* Fill beer pilsners with nuts, mints and other candy and use ribbon to tie a bow at the stem. Place glasses throughout the house so guests can munch while mingling.
* Use clear martini glasses or margarita glasses to serve
desserts, mashed potatoes, sorbets or other side dishes.
* An inexpensive way to dress up your party is to pick up some specialty barware like unusual martini glasses, stemless wine glasses,
or
light up barware.
Speak Easy Back Room
Adding a few
casino
decorations would create the perfect speak easy back room
decor.
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Food
Ideas:
Mangia! Mangia!
Don’t forget the most important
part of the party – Italian food! When your gangsters' &
molls' want to eat, they say, "Mangia!" That means eat
until you can eat no longer.
Serve lotsa pasta! Have a pasta buffet where guests can pick and choose
their own pastas and sauces.
Begin the meal with plates of antipasti. Ask each guest to bring one
contribution to the platter, such as olives, cheese or meats, then
spread them out on the table and snack away.
Why not serve American’s favorite Italian food – Pizza! You can make
pizzas with a variety of toppings and offer slices throughout the
evening.
Make a big green salad tossed with Italian dressing.
Other Ideas:
Homemade spaghetti and meatballs,
Ravioli with red sauce,
Shells stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach
Garlic breadsticks with a side of red sauce for dipping.
Italian wines and Italian sodas. (Red
Sebastiani wine for the adults) and (grape juice or soda for the
youngsters).
For dessert, it’s got to be gelato, the ice cream specialty of
Italy.
Or try Chocolate Cannoli
Brew up cappuccinos, espressos, and lattes to go with the gelato.
End the evening with a shot of grappa to help digest the meal!
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Activities
& Games
The Charleston was all the
rage during the Roaring Twenties, so hire a DJ or Band and dance the
night away! Other popular dances of the 20s included: Foxtrot, Turkey
Trot, Peabody, Jive, Lindy Hop, Black Bottom. Hire
a dance instructor to come in and teach a few steps to your guests.
Remember
those speak easies were created to provide alcoholic beverages
& gambling. So set up your own little back room gambling casino with
casino games.
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A
Little 1920s History
The end of WWI marked the
beginning of the Roaring '20s. During this freewheeling decade, skirts
got shorter, gangsters fought for control of alcohol sales, and the
Charleston was all the rage.
The 1920s, a prosperous time period was known by a few names, such as
the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, the Age of Wonderful Nonsense, and
the Age of Intolerance.
In 1919, the 18th Amendment passed the act of Prohibition, which made
consumption and even possession of alcohol illegal. The general intent
of the this Amendment was to lower crime and improve the general status
of life. But the opposite happened, crime increased as people rebelled
against not being able to drink alcohol. Numerous illegal bars called speak
easies were created to provide alcoholic beverages & gambling.
This time period also included bathtub gin and other versions of
homemade alcohol. Gangsters profited during this decade by smuggling
alcohol and selling it to different illegal businesses.
In the 1920s, a new woman
was born, She smoked, drank, danced, asked guys out, bobbed her hair,
wore baggy dresses which often exposed her arms as well as her legs from
the knees down, she used make-up (which she might well apply in public),
went to petting parties, was more assertive and voted. She took the same
jobs as men and still fought for laws against inequality. Her antics
were immortalized in the cartoons of John Held Jr., she was the heroine
of the Jazz Age. With her short hair, short skirt, turned-down hose and
powdered knees - she must have seemed to her mother (the gentle Gibson
girl of an earlier generation) like a rebel. No longer confined to home
and tradition, this young women was often thought of as a little fast
and maybe even a little brazen. Mostly, she offended the older
generation because she defied conventions of acceptable feminine
behavior. She was giddy and took risks. She
was a flapper.
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THE FLAPPER
by Dorothy Parker
The Playful flapper here we see,
The fairest of the fair.
She's not what Grandma used to be, --
You might say, au contraire.
Her girlish ways may make a stir,
Her manners cause a scene,
But there is no more harm in her
Than in a submarine.
She nightly knocks for many a goal
The usual dancing men.
Her speed is great, but her control
Is something else again.
All spotlights focus on her pranks.
All tongues her prowess herald.
For which she well may render thanks
To God and Scott Fitzgerald.
Her golden rule is plain enough -
Just get them young and treat them
rough
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