As a bridesmaid, it's my job to plan my friend's upcoming bridal shower. The bride-to-be is a HUGE Harry Potter fan. The honeymoon is going to be at the Harry Potter World at Universal Studios, if that tells you anything.
So the question for me became: How do I properly throw a party inspired by the books and movies, without making it look like a children's birthday party?
There are TONS of suggestions out there, so it was easy to see some possible options, but we also wanted to make it uniquely appropriate for Stefani, our bride. So we settled on a “Madam Puddifoot's Tea House” theme — a tea party, complete with crumpets, and scones, and tea and lemonade…
Plus we threw in a few Harry Potter things, like the Marauder's map, house badges for sorting everyone, and games of Quidditch beer pong — yes, with actual butterbeer in the cups.
The highlight of the event was a Transfiguration photo booth, complete with costumes and a stuffed owl. We brought along a mini photo printer, and printed each of the photos so that guests could paste them into a small “charms and wishes” guest book that was hacked from a simple paper-covered Moleskine notebook.
People could write notes of love and wishes to the bride, alongside their photos, for her to look back on as a memory.
Everyone got these awesome teacup candles as favors. We also had a wand-making station — the wands were a hit!
They started out as dowels, cut to size, carved up a bit, sanded down, spray painted, and then rubbed with some “rub and buff” metallic finish.
We used all sorts of bling, wire, glitter hot glue (yes, that's a thing!), and everyone made wands that were definitely representative of their personalities.
We even had our own personal dragon wandering around the party in the form of Maez, the hostess's cat.
We also had a “Goblet of Fire” station — “potions” to drink that included flaming rum.
The party was so much fun that we didn't even realize it was almost 7:30 by the time we started to wind down! By the end of the night, there were just a few happy wizards and witches hanging around, happily pasting photos into the charm book, and much adorable photo posting on Facebook.
Can you be my bridesmaid too please? 😀
🙂 🙂 🙂 I am never being a bridesmaid ever again. 🙂 🙂 🙂 lol
Hahaha, awesome, so glad to see this up here! 🙂 🙂
It was a GREAT time, and heavily crafty – so if anyone has any questions, I am totally available to answer. Also, I want to make sure that my co-host Andie gets just as much credit. She may come around and answer questions too. 🙂 🙂
You did a great job with this party! I love the little dragon… I wish my cat was as *ahem* accommodating as the one in the picture- I think she would bite me if I tried it! Lol!
How did you make the teacup candles?
The candles were made by Andie’s husband – a fun fact being that both her husband and my husband are hobbyist chandlers! We didn’t know that till after we became friends. Anyway, Andie went to the thrift store and bought a bunch of teacup odds and ends, and Greg made the candles using different wicks and stuff. I can ask him to come over here and explain more in-depth!
OMG! I’m glad I’m not the only “lady child” (my moms term) that longed for a HP themed shower! I LOVE the candle idea; we went the easy route and did a candy buffet featuring all the HP-candies and treats from the books (Bertie Botts beans, licorice wands, Droobles best blowing gum, etc) and each guest got a chocolate frog and a golden snitch treat. We also had guests put their name in the goblet of fire to earn prizes, as well as a HP word search. There was a brick Platform 9 3/4 “entryway” into the room and pictures of moaning myrtle in the bathroom. Each table was themed to a class at Hogwarts; It was a lot of fun 🙂 I LOVE these ideas! Makes me want to have another shower! Quidditch pong might just have to make an appearance at Halloween!
Quidditch beer pong needs to be a Thing! Were there special rules? (e.g. more drinks for making it through a hoop first)
Yes! There are rules! I will have to dig them up, but yes! There are rules, and they involve casting spells and using bludgers!
Aaaannnndd……the rules to Quidditch Beer Pong are up on the Offbeat Home blog! 🙂 🙂
This was just amazing. I think I need a bridal shower redo. Or maybe a harry potter themed New Years eve party! 🙂 Just awesome.
can’t wait to pitch this idea to my one client she’s looking for that “unique” bridal shower idea 🙂
I had a Harry Potter themed bachelorette party (some NSFW details to follow): we had “pin the wand on the wizard” where we printed out a large picture of Daniel Radcliff in equis and blurred out his junk. We printed out weird hp pictures (dobbys head, a snake, a wand, the scarlet express, etc) and everyone got to pick one and try to pin it where his junk was. That was funny. We had a sorting ceremony by drawing slips out of a bowl; the houses determined who was on whose team for foosball lol. I bought some “wands” (a few bubble wands, some glow stick swords, and a vibrator) and we wrote up descriptions of the wands and what to use them for (ex: the one for the vibe said something like “great for the beginner or experienced wizard interested in self discovery”) and everyone drew a number and that determined who got which wand. We put funny names and words from the books in a hat and had people draw to find their wizard name (luna padfoot, peeves longbottom, etc) and everyone wrote marriage advice in a magical textbook for me. It was a little raunchy and a lot nerdy and I had a ton of fun!
You know, I was kind of adamantly against the idea of a bridal shower until I read this post. Those feelings have changed.
ETA: against the idea of one *for me*, that is. It just didn’t feel right. I’ve no problem with people having bridal showers in general. You do you!
I have never been interested in ever playing beer pong until now…haha! This looks like a blast! I do agree, trying to make parties of any sort it seems for adults is difficult. I always have trouble finding activities that aren’t extremely for children or just “get drunk”. I mean, drinking is fine, but us adults want to have fun too! haha So I love this! 🙂
This is amazing! I can’t get over the beer pong and the dragon! So fun!
BUTTERBEER QUIDDITCH PONG! Amazeballs!
Also, that dragon-cat looks super pissed and I love it! Pissed off cat faces are the best!