8 Original Party Themes your Guests Won't Forget

A great theme for a party, which goes beyond the normal fancy dress, is the coloured theme party. Basically you pick a colour (red for example) and the whole party is centred around that colour. That means everyone has to dress in red, your venue is decked out in red and every drink or bit of food that you serve has to be red.

Another dress code style, the letter party involves you picking a letter and making everyone in dress in something that begins with that letter. So if you pick "T" everyone has to dress as a tramp, toilet, teacher, teenager... you get the picture!

If you have the right venue for it then why not do a Barn Dance style party? Hire a band, insist everyone dresses like a cowboy or hill-billy and spit roast a pig for the food! You can even brew up a load of home brew if you've got the time. There are plenty of line dancing companies who'll provide the band and line dance leader for you.

One for the more adventurous amongst you... Basically the premise is that people can come along wearing anything other than clothes! So, you could go wrapped in tape, wearing a bin bag, wearing a curtain, with a barrel on two shoulder straps or whatever you fancy! Just no clothes please!

You can buy packs now that organise this whole event for you and they make it far easier to set-up than you might think. The only commitment required from your guests is that they dress the part (the parts are pre-assigned) and they don't say too much about it to each other before hand. This kind of party works great with a small group of friends and a meal.

Too many times people organise a party but forget about the live entertainment. Hiring a band for your venue (maybe not your home, but works great in a hall) is a must if you want the party to rock all night. A DJ is good but northing gets the crowd going more than a band who know what they're doing and play well.

If you're backyard or garden permits it, the "Backyard Olympics" can be a great way to spend a day, especially when you throw a few cocktails in the mix! The basic ideas for the games should be easy enough to figure out. Remember sports day at school? Well, give all of those ideas a try (sack race, egg and spoon, coconut shy etc) but make sure you have some medals to hand out on the podium you've probably made out of bricks and planks of wood; simple really!

There are numerous companies out there that can hire out the full works when it comes to equipment with all the trimmings. These hire companies will arrive at your house, set the whole thing up, provide croupiers, the tables and even the décor. Then all you have to do is get your party guests to turn up wearing their poshest frocks and suits.

Matty's Bonus: Another great idea I found when searching around (but more for your college/university kids) is the "Rubix Cube" party. Basically, everyone turns up wearing clothes and accessories which are all in completely different colours (e.g. a red shoe, a blue shoe, a yellow shirt, a pink hat etc). By the end of the night these people should have swapped the various items until their entire outfit is the same colour! This isn't one of those ideas you can pull off with 15 friends. You need a few of you to make this work!

Have fun!