Queen Bee Tea Party

This past fall I threw my sister Bethany a birthday tea party. She is the master party planner and has thrown a party for pretty much everyone in our group and family, so I decided it was waaaaay past due that we throw her a party. She has wanted to have a bee themed tea party for a long time since her nick name among all the nephews and nieces is Aunt B, also, there are a TON of things you can do with that theme, it was so fun to work with!

I enlisted the help of our other master party planner (ok so EVERYONE in our group is a master party planner!  Gosh we have so much fun together!) Angie, to help me brainstorm on how to make this party, out of this world.  She, of course, had some wonderful ideas! So many people helped me out with gathering fun bee themed things to add to our decor.  This was the first party I have planned and hosted and I was a little nervous since the birthday girl throws AMAZING parties, I wanted to live up to her standard of party, it was intimidating, but exciting! Here is what we came up with....

Angie and I made those honeycombs hanging on the wall.  They are made out of popsicle sticks and were a total blast to make!  It only took us about an hour and a half to create two of them for the two walls at the head and end of the table.  Yay for being crafty!

These are flavored honey sticks.  They come in such flavors as, orange blossom, wild flower, grapefruit, lemon, chocolate, licorice, lime, clove etc.  I just got a random assortment of all the different flavors at Pirate O's (the best store ever).  After lunch, we had a good time opening them up one at a time and passing them around, trying to guess what flavor each one was.  My favorites were grapefruit and orange blossom.

 

Angie made these adorable bee earrings for all the guests

 

We got a little giddy when we found these honey pot shaped honey tea stirrers!  How perfect!  I love small details like this!

 

Aren't those green bee plates the most amazing things you have ever seen!  Bethy had collected them from Anthropologie, I adore them.

I filled apothecaries full of "honey" for big statement decorations, they turned out so well!

 

We had our favors on the counter as part of the decoration because they just turned out so darn cute.  I filled mason jars full of honey and covered the tops of each one with some fun ribbon I found at the Emporium. (We got the idea from A Beautiful Mess blog, look it up they are the cutest girls ever, I desperately want to be friends with them!)

 

Now for the buffet.  I had created a tea party menu from different items that Bethy had pinned on her pinterest boards to ensure they would be dishes she would like.  I also wanted everything to have honey in it, which made for one delectable menu!

 

 

 For our main course we had, seriously, the most amazing paninis ever.  They consisted of brie, mozerella, AND ricotta cheese, ham, jam, we used fig jam for the party, and of course, honey.  (I later had my family over for dinner so they could enjoy the fun decorations and I made these for them since I had a ton of extra ingredients and I used mixed berry jam for that and it was, again, amazing!)

 

I was in charge of creating a honey bee cheese tray.  I love cheese, but have never been cultured enough to know what cheeses are good and which ones accents what and bring out certain flavors, so this was an excellent learning experience.  Now, every time I am at the store I have the urge to buy yummy expensive cheese since I now know how, but I refrain.  After shopping around at three different stores I ended up with Apricot Vanilla Wensleydale (the crowd favorite!), cranberry cinnamon goat cheese (my personal favorite), blueberry vanilla goat cheese, white Stilton with mangoes and ginger, and Stilton with cranberries.  Bethy also requested that we have honeycomb, she has always wanted to try it, and what better place to serve honey comb then at a honey bee party!

 

 

  

 

 Also, please notice I took the time to find honeycomb shaped crackers to accompany the honey bee cheese plate .... haha seriously, I love little details.

  

Honey bruschetta

  

Baklava 

 

These were a creative dish that I am so glad Libby was courageous enough to sign up for, and man did they turn out well!  They are a sweet potatoes souffle with goat cheese topped with roasted grapes and drizzled with honey.  Intriguing, yes...? They were divine!

 

And here is our beautiful drinks and dessert table.  Thank you Angie for creating that masterpiece of a chalkboard!

 

 Lavender biscuits

 

 Honey bee cakes

  

 Honeycomb toast, for sampling all the many kinds of honey we had to try.

  

Freshly made mint lemonade

 

 Lavender sugar to mix into your refreshing mint lemonade

  

As planned, the birthday girl was the last to arrive.  I wanted everything to be in place before she got there, so we were all busy little bees getting everything cooked and in place before Bethy arrived.  I also wanted her to feel like a true queen bee at her party so I sent our friend, Eliza, who is a GENIUS, with hair and makeup, over to Bethy's house to give our birthday queen a make over, complete with a beautiful beehive hairdo.  She looked GORGEOUS!!!!

 

 

Our happy hive! (y'all better be enjoying all these puns)

All the food and beverages were A M A Z I N G!! Thank you, every single one of you, for signing up to bring all the dishes and to make this party so memorable! There is no way I could have pulled this party off without all of you.  xoxo

 

Present time!  Luckily, my Christmas decorations were gold and cream this year so they fit in pretty well with our golden honey theme. I was just too anxious to get it all up, I couldn't wait until after the party haha.

 

What a happy day spent with friends celebrating someone we all love so dearly!  Bethy, being the thoughtful girl that she is, had already made everyone thank you gifts.  It was a cute playlist of the most happy and upbeat music she could find!  What an awesome surprise gift! I have said it before and  I will say it again, I am friends with some pretty amazing women and I am so lucky to have them in my life.  I adore every single one of them!  Happiest of birthdays to you Queen B!