Tips for organizing your own tea party

In 2005, I was invited by John’s family to visit his family in Cape Town. It was my first time in South Africa. There were so many nice memories, but the afternoon tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel always come up to my mind when I have tea with my friends back in Amsterdam.

It is my best tea experience till now, I love their sweet confections and large selections of savory. The choices of tea and its quality is second to none. I remembered to have some flowers and leaf teas. I learned that they used Darjeeling, Kenya, Assam, Keemun, Yunnan, Ceylon and rose petals. I felt that I am in the heaven with all delicious chocolate cake, lemon cake and South African milk tart-melktert. The most nice thing is that the tea is served in the garden on the terrace. Oh, so nice experience.

Image: mountnelson
Why I want to have a long introduction for the afternoon tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel? Because last weekend, I made my own first tea party in Amsterdam, and invited family from South Africa/Dutch. Here are some tips for organizing your tea party in the weekend:

1) Make your own invitation if you can. Most of time, handmade card and letters are more personal. It is from your heart. It is from deep of your heart to welcome everyone to your tea party. Go to the craft shop, get some nice paper and colors, start to design your cards.

2) Pay attention to the guests who has allergy to any kind of food. It will be so sweet if you can prepare something delicious for the guests who has food allergy problems. They will enjoy the party more, because finally they can taste the food on the party instead of taking their own food for the party every time.

3) Make your cake if you can. Try to look for some nice recipe online for making the cake if you never had experience. John and I only made cake once. So one week before the tea party, we tried out to make a smaller one to taste ourselves. It worked out well. At the day itself, we served our own home-made strawberry cake. Actually we also bought the lemon cake from Albert Heijn, at the end, the home-made cake was surprisingly be the winner.

4) Arrange some nice table runner to decorate the table, have the material, color and the shape match with the table, the setting, the cups, cutlery, the the flowers even.

5) Use some nice ceramic for serving the cake.

source: ninainvorm

6) Cut fresh flowers for the party, it is not a center piece, but it should balance well with the rest of the settings. It should make the guests feel comfortable to move around and not worrying about accidentally knock down your flowers arrangement on the table. I used the lavender from my balcony. It smell delicious and it is so easy to arrange.

7) Be children friendly. Prepare some games or crafts for the kids to play or entertaining themselves with the guidance of one adult. It will be such a fun for them to be at the tea party as well. If the kids are happy, the whole atmosphere will be happy too.

Dress up for the occasion. I think it is not polite to wear a jean on the tea party. Take some nice clothes from your closet, and shine the day.