Autumn Amelia: Erik's Graduation Party

Hello everyone!

Last Friday we had a little get together to celebrate Erik's graduation.

We invited a small group of friends and family to join us for dessert.

Today I am going to give you all the deets about the event because your girl loves a good party...

The Invitations

Erik is a simple man, so we went with simple invitations.

For the announcements, we did a black background with white font and on the reverse side a picture of Erik.

We took the picture of Erik in front of the brick on our house because I thought it would give that school vibe.

We ain't fancy...

We sent out announcements to all of Erik's family members and inserted a separate invitation to the Open House to our immediate family and friends.

The invitation was also a black background with white font.

The Food

When we originally started planning this party we were bouncing around the idea of getting a food truck.

Further into planning, Erik asked if we could just do dessert.

Erik has a wicked sweet tooth...

Since this was his party I wanted it to be all about him so, dessert it was.

We went with his three favorites: root beer floats, cheesecake and donuts.

I wasn't sure how to serve root beer floats to a crowd...
I decided to fill a galvanized tub with ice and place mason jars full of vanilla ice cream in it.

To the side were cans of root beer for guests to pour over the ice cream or to enjoy on their own.

For the cheesecake, we went with a variety of mini's: original, chocolate chip and strawberry.
I used three sizes of cake stands to display them.
I placed the largest in the back, the next largest to the side and the smallest in the front.
To make them fit in with the theme we inserted graduation cupcake toppers into a few.

We displayed the donuts on the donut wall I made last year.
We had a variety of flavors for people to choose from.
Glazed, chocolate and maple.

I decided to add in some cookies as well, just in case.
We placed the cookies in glass jars and had little chalkboards in front of them telling the guests which flavor they were.
We had chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia nut and my grandma's famous sugar cookies which we added a few sprinkles to.

The Decor

I knew I wanted to keep it pretty simple for decorations as it was just an Open House.

The theme and color scheme picked themselves.

Theme: Graduation

Colors: Red, Black and White with a hint of Gold to match the University he graduated from.

I thought that a few school elements would be a nice touch.
We had a globe, chalkboards, kraft paper and a letter board.
When you first entered the room, there was a decorated wall straight ahead of you.
Erik was going to stand there to welcome and direct the guests but it was a very casual event so he ended up walking around for most of the time.
It made for some cute pictures though!
I placed two gold fringe curtains on the wall and hung a balloon arch over it in the University's colors.

To the left of the wall was our welcome table.

On the left, we had a globe for guests to sign as our guest book.

In the center was a picture of Erik along with his diploma

On the right, was a graduation cap-shaped box for cards and a jar for people who were feeling generous to donate some mula to Erik's Student Loan Fund.

We also had room on the table for guests to place presents if they brought them.

To the right of the tassel wall, we had the main dessert table.

It had the cookies, donuts and cheesecake on it.

We also had plates, napkins and silverware for guests to help themselves to the treats.

All of the tables were covered in kraft paper.

We had four tables for guests to sit at on either side of the path from the entrance to the tassel wall.

Two on one side, and two on the other.

The tables were a little plain with just the kraft paper so we added some graduation themed confetti to the center of the tables to liven them up.

The refreshment station was to the right of the dessert table.

I hung a gold tassel banner above it to make it more festive.

I also added a mason jar full of wooden spoons and a milk bottle full of colorful paper straws next to the galvanized tub for the guests to use with their root beer floats.

The Activities

I always like to have a few activities for guests to do at an event.

Eating and socializing are usually a given but, you need something else for when there is a lull or for those who have trouble socializing. (Me!)
I always like to include something for guests to sign, like our globe at the welcome table.