Savvy Soirees

The wine party is a great chance to introduce your friends to new wine flavors and have fun at the same time.

There are two different ways to go about it. The first is to invite a local wine store to come in and do tastings. (Many of your local wine stores will do this, or will at least be able to refer you to someone who does this) Usually you will pay a fee for this, or be required to buy a certain number of bottles total for all the members of the party.

The upside to doing the party this way is that you get an expert to come in and tell you about the wines and you are guaranteed to have enough wine for everyone.

The downside is that it can work out to be more expensive for the host.

This also gives the event a more formal feel, which could be good or bad depending on what you are aiming for.

The second way to do the wine party is more informal and gives everyone a stake of ownership in the tasting. You ask every guest to bring a bottle of their favorite wine. The upside of this is that it's relatively inexpensive, it's fun, and it makes your guests the experts on each bottle of wine they bring in. It also encourages variety beyond the offerings of just one store or winery.

The downside is that some guests might feel put out by being asked to bring something. I will say that I've hosted this style of wine party three times, and my guests have always loved this aspect. Everyone's eager to share their love of a particular type of wine.

Your guests may also ask your advice when deciding what to bring.

Regardless of which method you go with, be sure to provide people with pens and paper so they can mark down which types of wine they like for future reference.

You should also make sure to provide some sort of food to cleanse the palate. My favorite is crackers, french bread, and cheese. (Brie is especially nice) Pretzels and peanuts also work fairly well.

For ambience, it's best to have some soft music playing in the background. I'm a fan of using a variety of jazz, mellow alternative, and slightly eclectic. You can get away with not having music, as this is definitely a party that will get people talking and socializing.

If you don't know much about wine, don't fear. There are plenty of books out there that go over the basics (and not-so-basics) of wine. You can also check out Vino Fantastico, my lens that focuses on this great drink.

First, you should decide what 'feel' you are going for in invitations. For the haunted castle, we went for a creepy, but magical feel.

The trick to creating your own classy invitations is that simpler is better. Some of the invitations I've gotten the most compliments on just had pretty paper and fancy font.

So, choosing the paper:
There are countless options for this. You can get paper with a design on it, or you can go old fashioned and classic with parchment paper. There are also some really great textured blank invitations that look extremely classy.

From there, you should choose the font. Make sure it's legible though. The fanciest font in the world won't help you if your guests can't read your address, date, and time. I would recommend doing a test print before you go ahead and print up all 40 invitations (or however many you need) If using a fancier font, sometimes numbers and punctuation aren't legible. The best way around this is to use a plainer font, sometimes bolded or italicized to match the feel of the original font, for just the numbers and punctuation.

Suggestions on wording:
Tie it into your theme. Think beyond 'you are invited to...' I'll include some samples later.

Invitation etiquette:
Send invitations at least a month in advance. Give your guests a bit more time if asking for an rsvp.

If there is a situation where two people are living together or married, be sure to invite both, unless it is an all-female or all-male party. Snubbing a significant other is pretty tacky.

I'll add more etiquette issues as I come across them. Feel free to leave questions in the comment box if you're unsure about invitation etiquette. But, for a less formal bash, there's not a whole lot of etiquette no-nos. That's half the fun after all!

My current planning is a Halloween Costume Party. Since the husband and I are going as Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley, we've decided to do a 'haunted castle' theme in our apartment.

So, the trick this year is pulling this off on a small budget. I think we're not alone in this issue.

The first thing to do is decorations. After deciding the when, where, and what, that's always my next step. So, the question is-how do we turn our white walled apartment into a haunted medieval castle?

Well, we found a pretty inexpensive wall covering at partycheap.com, so that will begin to set the tone. From there, it's all about the details.

After getting some great inspiration from www.britta.com, (her book is linked below. the woman is an expert) I went to my local dollar tree. There, I found plastic shields that will look perfect hanging on the wall. I also found mini gargoyle statues, taper candles and candle holders.

The plan is to light the apartment with candles instead of our much brighter overhead lights. Our kitchen will have blue lightbulbs (a bit of a splurge at $2.50/bulb from target, but worth it) to cast an eerie effect.

I was also able to get a pretty cheap plastic cauldron from Walgreens, and I'm going to fill that with dry ice and water colored with green food coloring. I am also putting green glow sticks (thank you Dollar Tree) in the bottom of the cauldron, to create the effect of a glowing witch's potion.

To cover up our very non-medieval CD shelf, we're using a fitted black sheet that we had around the house. If you have any dark colored sheets, now is a good time to use them.

The trick in decorating is not to spend a bundle, but to look at what you do have and how you can adapt it. Then, whatever you can get inexpensively. Look beyond decorations for the season-sometimes you'll find great deals in regular household aisles. Sometimes, if you ask around, you would be surprised what your friends might be willing the lend out as well. We were able to borrow a fog machine, among other decorative touches.

Next time, I'll write about the music/sound effects and recipes that we will be using.