Tell me about your housewarming party!

[Hera]

So I will be having a housewarming party in the next few months and I was wondering if you all could share details from your housewarming party (decor, food, theme,etc).

 

[ksinger]

No theme. My parties never have a theme. Just a totally clean house, and really good, personally prepared food, the only theme you need IMO. My housewarming was come-and-go, and started around 2 and went til whenever. It was in November.

I have a tiny house, so I started pre-cooking (what would freeze well) in October. I made homemade chocolate nut bars with a crust, chocolate/vanilla checkerboard cookies (serious effort there!), and chocolate biscuits (with homemade bourbon flavored whipped cream made at the last minute). I also did a homemade chocolate pound cake. I pre-cooked a million oven meatballs (party-sized) that I pulled out of the freezer later and put into crock pot with a sauce made of a can of Campbell''s Cream of Mushroom and dry white wine. Cheating a bit, but it''s great stuff, honestly, and EASY!

The day of I made oodles of small crab cakes (from "Miami Spice" cookbook.) with citrus sour cream sauce (absolutely KILLER stuff!). I also pre-marinated 3 pork tenderloins (soy, Worcesteshire, scallions....) that I roasted and served sliced on tiny rolls with various condiments. I also had the pre-made little quiches you can get at Sams. Another cheat. I also had all the major liquors for drinks, mixers, and decent box wines, red and white. The cooking was mostly done when the guests started arriving, so I could have a bunch of fall-scented (Orange and Evergreen, by Aromatique) candles going. Smelled great and looked lovely as the sun went down...

I''m sure I''m forgetting something - it was 11 years ago after all. But it was a huge do I must say. Friends remember it to this day. Our wedding party was a smash too. Did all the cooking myself (with DH this time). We are still getting requests for "another party". But I warn you, it IS a bunch of work, and the way I do it, NOT cheap. Fun though, if you like planning and cooking, which I do.

 

[Haven]

We''re having a housewarming party on the 4th of July! We actually bought our house last summer, but we never got around to having a proper housewarming party because life got in the way, and we wanted to throw the party during the summer months so we could make use of our gorgeous front yard and backyard. My sister is also leaving for rabbinic school on the 5th, so we''re combining our housewarming with a bon voyage party for her.

We called the party an open house from noon to 4, though our close friends and family always stick around long after the party for dinner, too, when we have daytime parties.

THEME
I entertain a lot, and most of my parties don''t have themes, but this one does--we''re calling it the Inappropriately Funny T-Shirt Party because we thought it would be fun. It''s pretty out of character for my friends and family to wear that type of thing, so we think it''s going to be pretty hilarious. I also think it will be a good way to encourage people to strike up conversations with each other, we''ve invited over 100 people and many of them don''t know each other.

We also throw a Christmas Eve Pizza Throwdown, which is our only other themed party. It''s always a huge success. Everyone tastes a bit of all the different pizzas and votes on which is the best based on overall taste, crust, sauce, etc. It''s hilarious because people end up having these really in-depth discussions about the merits of one pizza''s sauce versus another''s. Everyone votes, and then we have a bit reveal for the winner. This is also a lot of fun when everyone doesn''t know each other, it definitely gets the conversations started.

DECOR
I''m going with elegant 4th of July decor, not those giant red, white, and blue banners or anything, but a lot of tiny white lights strung up in the yard, paper balls hanging from the ceilings and trees, that sort of thing.

FOOD
I''m not completely set on the menu, yet, but here''s what I have thus far:
Mains--Baked ziti, sandwiches, bagels and smear, ????
Sides--Lots of dips (buffalo chicken dip, salsas, etc.,) slow cooker meatballs, grilled veggies, pasta salads, Caesar salad, summer salads, etc.
Sweets--Banana crunch muffins, a cake for my sister, cookies, and a 4th of July ice cream dish from Martha Stewart''s Living magazine

DRINK
Lemonades, sodas, water, beer, margaritas, and sangria

I agree with ksinger that all you really need is a clean space and good food, especially if your guests are good conversationalists! Food that you can prepare ahead of time is key, too, because that will save you stress on the day of the party. I also have an arsenal of delicious, quick recipes that won''t cause stress if I throw them together the morning of a party because I know them well, and they''re easy.

Have fun planning your party! And congratulations on your new home.

 

[Elmorton]

We've had two now (and uh...married two years...) so I feel like we're old hat at this! Our first was right after our honeymoon - we loved seeing everyone together at the wedding and had a lot of local friends, so we just invited everyone over and called it a housewarming for lack of a better term. The second was when we actually bought our house, and it began with a house blessing with our priest and close family/friends and then the general invites were for an hour later. DH and I are thinking about just starting an annual cookout since we're bummed about not having one this year. I will say that it's a pretty informal gathering, since we're both relatively young and we're among the first of our friends to have a house.

Invites: Both times were very informal (what where when kind of style), sent both via post and e-mail - no RSVP except we asked that if out of towners were spending the night to let us know so we could "arrange accommodations."

Food: DH and I provided meat, grill, a couple of sides (like chips), pop and, last time, we got a keg, which was wildly successful. I forget the wording, but I think we basically said that there would be plenty of food but guests could bring a dish to share if they'd like. In the midwest, I feel like you can't actually STOP people from bringing something, so both times, we've had kitchen counters AND table full of food.

Meat: For the first one, DH and I started a "friendly" competition of competing marinades. I won the first with a tequila lime chicken, DH won the second with bbq (I think my asian orange was too sophisticated last year). We marinate chicken cubes and I prep huge dishes of cut veggies (onion, pepper, tomato, mushroom) and we let everyone build their own kbobs and throw 'em on the grill. It's really fun.

Theme: No theme - just people in our house!

Time: We usually do designate a time that the grill will be going so people know when they can expect to be fed and then the "younger crowd" (our 20-something friends from out of town) plans stay/crash after the "older crowd" (our parents, grandparents, co-workers, etc) leave. I think last time on the invites I was worried about running out of food (silly, silly me) since we'd invited about 50 people so we did "Open House starting at 3, Grill hot from 4-6"

Decor: Clean house! Last time we had a tent (the kind people use for tailgating) on standby, but it was too cold. When you have a bunch of people coming in and out of your house, it just makes more sense to do the paper plates and plastic type thing. I do usually add "down home" touches like putting the utensils in different mason jars.

Music: DH usually has some type of jam or jazz going on, low enough so people can talk.

If it's a bigger shin-dig, don't forget to invite your neighbors.

 

[Mara]

we just had ours about a month ago... we had about 30-40 people and it was indoor and outdoor. we ended up making a few things on the grill (corn and hot dogs), but we had it catered by a local BBQ place that we love because it was cheaper in the long run than buying a bunch of food and spending hours cooking it on the grill while people mingled without us. so the theme was basically just like outdoor big texas bbq kinda thing. (even though we are in CA).

i made 4 gallons of sangria, we had a pony keg, a lot of wine bottles, water, lemonade. i made red velvet cupcakes and banana layer pudding. the BBQ was pulled pork and grilled sirloin, baked honey beans, rolls, mac and cheese, and two types of salads. the food was only a few hundred dollars so it was worth it and they came and set everything up hot-style. it was open house style, people just came and went. it started at 4pm and went til about midnight...i was so exhausted by then!!

i told all the people with kids to come earlier and they did...which was great because then all the kids could play together outside and by the time all the people who would be serious about drinking the sangria and beer came in, the kids and families were gone. i had flowers all over the house, the house was freshly cleaned, the yard was manicured...everything showed nicely, everyone had a great time. we told everyone no gifts but a bottle of wine if you MUST...people we haven't seen in months came by, it was great. we also invited our immediate neighbors.

i would totally recommend catering at least part of it if you can and making some on your own because otherwise it can be overwhelming and you won't enjoy yourselves as much....in the past we have tried to do it all ourselves and either we are really inefficient at it or it just doesn't work because previous parties have not been as enjoyable to us as this one has. we were able to mingle and talk with everyone without being invisible as host and hostess.

 

[April20]

We had one last January when we finished our remodel. No decor, just a clean house and any unfinished "projects" hidden as best as possible. If you''d seen my house the morning of, you''d have thought my theme was "Disaster Recovery". I did invite people with the premise that they were going to "See the Transformation" and I had "before" photos of all the rooms for those that were interested in seeing them. We had appetizer type food (salami rolls, chips, dips, hummus, etc) and DH was mixing cocktails on demand. We invited about 140 people and it was a come & go or come & stay type event. Our good friends came and stayed, people that were more acquaintances came and went. We had a great time.

 

[doodle]

We had our housewarming on 7/7/07 and officially kicked off the party at 7:07 by supplying everyone with a Seagram''s 7 & 7 (Seagrams 7 and 7-Up). It fit since the party was a stock the bar party, so everyone brought us booze (and a really freaking awesome wine cooler!). We grilled burgers for everyone, and we had a bunch of munchies. As for decor, well...all the dishes matched, haha, but other than that, we didn''t really do anything special.

 

[Mannequin]

The party I threw sounds similar to yours, April20. My BF was renovating a rental house for close to two years, and I threw him a housewarming at the end. We called the open house the TGIF Party - Thank God It''s Finished! In addition to a "Congratulations" banner, I decorated with a construction theme: caution tape, Tonka truck balloons, hard hats that doubled as chip bowls, etc. I bought a huge 6 ft sub from a local Walmart deli and set half out at a time along with a fresh salad and some mac and cheese and desserts. We kept pop and water in the fridge. I hung up poster boards with pictures of the house before and after he worked on it and set out a guest book for friends and family to sign. I set up a ribbon cutting ceremony on the front porch and had BF slice through the red ribbon with the same utility knife he had used on the whole project. My favorite moment was after the ribbon cutting when my father cracked a bottle of champagne and sprayed my BF and the front porch!