Housewarming Party Planning...

If you are a regular reader (aka one of my friends who actually still reads this), you may know I moved out of home a couple of months ago. I am aware that a few of my friends wanted to see the house and see where I now live. Therefore I arranged a small housewarming party with a few friends to celebrate the fact I have now moved. You don't hear much of housewarming parties these days however I really wanted to have one, not like a party but more like a small gathering, just to meet up with a few of my friends, to have a good chilled out time together. And this post is my guide on how to plan a relatively successful housewarming party, whilst on a time scale and a bit of a budget too.

It was a pretty last minute plan even though I had wanted to do this for a while. The first thing to do is pick a date, a date, ideally when all of the people you are inviting can do. This had to be restricted as we moved in end of March, the month of April we were only just settling in and unpacking and May was literally impossible for me to do anything as I was so busy. June was finally approaching and it is definitely considerably more quieter for me. Therefore I decided I wanted to plan it in early June, however it all depended on when everyone was free.

Next is guest list. I had to think a bit for this, simply because I didn't want a huge group of people round for the first gathering I have ever hosted at my house. Plus space is also limited, I have a three seater sofa, a small squishy beanbag which is actually my mums and my old duvet! Realistically I just don't have the space for lots of people to come round. So I invited the people who have really been there for me the last few years, the first few people who I (finally) told about me moving out. A smaller group also meant it was more likely for everyone to actually be free, and it was less people to cater for as my first time hosting a gathering. Luckily we found a day where everyone was free (Sunday 3rd June) which gave me just under a week to plan how to actually host this (I had never done anything like this before!)

 As these are primarily my friends, I decided to make this a girly gathering. Jordan was out the afternoon anyway, and would come back in the evening so it worked out well in that respect. He was cool with that as he is also planning a housewarming around the time of the World Cup with his friends and to be honest I really couldn't care about the World Cup so it made sense for us both to host separate events for our friends!

So I had a date, time and friends actually turning up (thanks guys, I appreciate it!) Now it was time to plan!

Tidy up: The house was pretty clean anyway, however we did need a tidy up! I sorted out through a lot of stuff in the living room, which was taken upstairs in our storage space, took down the clothes horse and had to schedule washing around this... I didn't want my clothes to be drying when my friends came round! Bins needed to be emptied, and I left hoovering until last which was definitely the best decision.

Food: This is a pretty given category, basically I wanted to serve the most simplest food possible to shove in the oven and spend more time with my friends! I bought a variety of pizzas from ASDA for this, such as mozzarella, Hawaiian, Chicken Fajita and Veggie Supreme (which was extremely popular, note to future self!). I also got sides, such as mozzarella sticks, garlic bread (which didn't quite go to plan!), sausage rolls, salads and cocktail sausages! For dessert, I had got Unicorn cupcakes, mini chocolates. And two victoria sponge cakes to decorate which didn't even up getting decorated, and the cupcakes. Just simple things like that to make a spread. I also have a selection of drinks, a few cans of Kopparberg but mainly Coke and Fanta, and Siobhan very kindly brought round a bottle of Prosecco!

Activities: I wasn't too concerned with this as it ultimately depended on what everyone else wanted to do! I personally love the idea of decorating cakes, we have done it before as a group so I also got a full cupcake decorating kits, with blank cupcakes and Victoria sponges, icing, sprinkles and other decorations. Jordan also recently downloaded Jackbox, so that was also available which was really fun to play.

I also enlisted the help of my friends for this one as we don't have many games, so quite a few games were bought round and Deadpool Monopoly and What Do You Meme were the chosen ones!

Gifts: I also wanted to do small gifts, something for each of my friends to take away with them. I had the idea of getting an old purple box, which I filled with tea lights which I got from Clintons. There were 12 scents available and you get two tealights in each pack, so I thought it would be really nice to have these for my friends to take away with them. Plus they smell absolutely gorgeous! The later last minute idea was filling up small hexagonal jars with sweets and chocolates, and I decorated the glass jars with a sharpie which also made a more personal touch!

Decorations and small touches: I didn't really want to go all out with banners, balloons etc as I swear housewarmings are not a massive thing, but I did want a few small touches. I bought a small chopping board for £2 and decided to write "Guest Board" on. I didn't want a guestbook for people only coming round, plus with the chopping board it fits in with the kitchen so I can display it. Unfortunately we have already had a few family guests round before the housewarming however I purchased this a few days before. I'm hoping for the board to eventually fill up with everyone who comes round signatures! With the small touches, I think the gifts ideas mentioned above also comes into this section. Paper plates are a must, simply to save on washing up. And a cake stand was also perfect to display our decorated cupcakes.

Overall I tried my hardest to make it a success and I think it worked out ok in that respect (apart from the burnt mozzarella sticks and garlic bread!). I was stressed beforehand as to whether I had got enough food, drink and catered to everyone's needs, but I shouldn't have worried so much as everyone seemed to have a good time and that was the main thing which made me happy!

So yeah it's all good...

Amy :)