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Beach Party Guide

FREE decorating tips & recipe ideas to assist with your preparations

Are you ready for some fun in the sun?

 

The Invites
 

There are a few important decisions to be made before you send out your invitations - Date - It’s a good idea to check the proposed date and time with “key” friends before committing.
 

Time - It is important to state a starting time on the invitations. You may also wish to state a finishing time, especially if the event is held at a hired venue.

Location - You have a couple of basic choices with the most popular being “home” where you’ll have plenty of time to set-up and have all your supplies close at hand. The obvious disadvantage is, cleaning the house before and after the party, possible damage and space limitations.

Remember to include on the invitation anything you may wish the guest to provide such as alcohol or a themed costume. If you plan on providing alcohol, make sure to add a footnote that guests should arrange alternative transport home, rather than driving.

When sending out invitations, allow plenty of time.

The golden rule for the party host is, don’t try and do everything on your own. Arrange for friends to help with the food and service at the event. Alternatively you may choose to hire wait staff or have the whole event catered, allowing you to enjoy the celebration as much as everyone else.


 

It’s Party Time

A great way to incorporate the Beach Party theme is by having your party at a nearby lake or beach and including fishing in the days’ activities. Hiring play equipment such as a waterspout or waterslide is a great way to entertain children and even the adults.

Digging for buried treasure - Hide a number of themed toys in your sandbox and let the guests take turns or jointly dig through the sand in search of the fun treasures. Finders’ keepers!


The Ambience
 

The cheapest and most effective way to decorate the party area is by using beach towels, umbrellas, old fishing nets, hammocks, a sandpit and buckets & spades. You could use leaves from banana palms to decorate the food tables and place pineapples, coconuts, watermelons and other fruits around the table to create a tropical theme.
 

It is easy to create a lake feature from jelly. Make up a blue jelly packet mix in a large bowl or platter with only a small lip (sides). Once the jelly has set chop/mash it up to create the effect of waves. Then grab some oranges, cut each in half and carefully scoop out all the flesh, using play dough or blue-tac to help keep the halved orange upright on a tray. Mix up a variety of colour jelly packet mix (using not quite as much water as instructed on the pack). Pour the jelly into the orange skins right to the top, let the jellies set and then cut each half orange into 3 segments. To make the sails simply use toothpicks and triangles cut out of paper.

 

The Eats
 

Barbeques are perfect for Beach Parties with hamburgers, hot dogs, kebabs. Spread beach towels over tables as tablecovers.

For small children, make sure to remove toothpicks, skewers and any other sharp objects from food before you serve it. Make sure an adult is in the room at all times in case a child chokes.

Dip the rim of each glass in lemon juice then add sugar or coconut before filling. You could also cut the top off a watermelon, hollow it out and fill with punch.
 

Try to serve at least a few types of healthy food. Make sure it looks colourful and appetising and you’ll probably find it will disappear in time

Fruit platter - Ingredients serve 6    
 

200g tub of vanilla yoghurt Small pinch of ground cinnamon 1 tablespoon honey 1 medium banana thickly sliced 1 tablespoon lemon juice 2 kiwi fruit, thickly sliced 1 small seedless watermelon cut in half, hollowed out and cut into cubes 1 tub of strawberries, halved

Combine yoghurt, cinnamon and honey in medium bowl. Drizzle banana with lemon juice. Display the food in hollowed out watermelon half with yoghurt mixture.

Jelly treats
 

Make up a variety of jelly packed mixes using slightly less water than instructed on packet. Then set in shallow plastic trays or ice cube trays without dividers. Cut the jelly into cubes and then thread onto skewers alternating the colours. Another easy treat is layering coloured jellies in glasses, waiting until each colour has set before adding the new coloured layer.


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