Halloween is the one time of year that you purposefully get dressed up and decorate things to look bad. From ripped and bloodied shirts to dirt covered graves in the garden and pets dressed as zombies, really your imagination is the only limit.
The Pop-Up Dining Room can be hired for kids or adult parties and we can provide themed food and décor with or without the mini marquee. It’s an excellent time of year to put your creepy, old dolls, broken violins and rusted candelabras to good use. In fact, you can put a whole load of mis-matched things together and cover them with cobwebs to create a spooky tablescape out of items you already have around the house.
A lot of the merchandise available in shops is directed at children and with children's parties in mind. We take a look at how you could cater and decorate for a more adult party using things found around the house. Of course, the kids will love all these ideas too. Setting the scene convincingly without all the mass manufactured plastic helps to conjure a spooky world, perfect for any great party.
Three ideas for this Halloween:
1. Take an old doll (if you don’t have one to hand you can buy these very cheaply from charity shops or recycling centres), and cut her hair or paint over her eyes. Even a well-worn one with no great disfigurements looks surprisingly eerie in a Halloween context. Place her on the table poking out of an old coffee pot or half buried in the flower bed if the party’s outside. Her eyeless sockets will follow your guests all evening! To take this idea further fill a big glass jar with dolls heads and parts from plastic skeletons available in all the places that sell a seasonal Halloween range. Adda liquid to make them look like creepy preseved specimens.
2. You can fashion a centre piece for your table using dried roses and long, bare, gnarled twigs. Cover them in cobwebs and suspend spiders and bats from them which when lit by candlelight from below, will cast terrifying shadows on the wall.
3. You can create a nightmarish drinks station by filling a clear urn with ‘shrunken heads’. Grab a bunch of apples, then peel and cut contorted faced into them. If you leave them sitting in the air for a while, they will start to brown. Then pop them into your urn along with your Halloween concoction for Shrunken Head Punch.
When throwing a Halloween party for adults, replace some of the sweet treats with actual food. Adults tend to veer towards the savoury treats at any party and something more substantial helps to soak up the alcohol as well!
Why not try…
Cheesy fingers? These are an excellent snack to serve as guests arrive. Everyone loves a home baked cheese twist and these are easy to make. Place them in a clean towel and you can use any box or trunk that fits your theme. Serve them warm, as if they are freshly severed! Another seasonal delight is Smoked Salmon Mousse Brain - perfect for smearing onto crunchy bread.
For a more elegant, less grotesque party staple choose vegetable rice stuffed ‘pumpkins’. By using orange peppers instead of actual pumpkins, your guests get to enjoy the whole dish, not just the contents.
Let The Pop-Up Dining Room do all the witchy work while you enjoy the party
Jennie has a background in Theatre Arts and a great eye for detail when it comes to creating a scene so if you fancy throwing a Halloween party this year but don’t really have the time to deck it out, why not give her a call and hand the whole thing over? The Pop-Up Dining Room can not only provide you with great party food (themed or not) but can also transform your venue into a spine-chilling haunted house. If you choose to hire the mini marquee they can help you make the most of your garden space to extend the venue. For prices and more information fill in the contact form below or call The Pop-Up Dining Room on 01395 445525
