I threw a celestial tea party in January, mainly for my birthday.
Why? Tea parties are timeless affairs that offer a delightful escape into a world of elegance, charm, and camaraderie. Whether you’re celebrating a special occasion or simply craving a sophisticated gathering, hosting a tea party is the perfect way to indulge in the finer things in life. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the essentials of throwing a memorable tea party, from selecting the perfect theme to curating a menu fit for royalty. I’m not an expert in tea etiquette, and I didn’t grow up in a setting where this was a normal thing. I had tea parties when I was a kid, but that was the extent of it. It was a lot of fun though, and I strongly encourage you to do this as well.
The first step is going to be picking your theme. I chose a celestial theme because I’m a little obsessed with space. I think in another life I will become an astronaut or an astronomer. Picking the theme allowed me to build a budget around decor, food, and drinks.
The second step is the guest list. Who is attending? For me, I planned for 8 people. The allergies I planned for were seafood and shellfish, so I eliminated those options from the menu. Additionally, this helped me write a guide to dress up.
Print products:
- Invitations
- Food Menu
- Drink Menu
Step three is probably my favorite step, and that’s creating the food and drink menus. For this, I didn’t want to make too much food or too little. This is the part where I did maybe 20 hours of research. Let me save you some time and tell you what I learned.
Don’t prepare everything before the day of the party. Some foods will get soggy and gross. Some won’t hold up well in the fridge. My party was planned for a Saturday, so I bought perishable foods on Thursday and Friday. The non-perishables were purchased throughout a couple of weeks.
I knew finger sandwiches were essential for this tea party, so I looked around for some recipes and found this blog post with 24 recipes. I went with tomato-mozzarella-basil, BLT, and peanut butter and jelly. I also added turkey and cheese and chicken salad. I decided to cut these into triangles and squares. The square cuts were no mayo; the triangles were normal. I did have an original plan to cut stars out of the bread, but ultimately, I decided against it because it wastes a lot of food and the cookie cutters weren’t amazing on bread (or the cookies).
Next, I did want to have a charcuterie board – but my guests are a little picky when it comes to eating. There is a 3-3-3-3 rule out there. The rule states that you should have 3 meats, cheeses, starches, and accompaniments. There was no way I was going to have 3 meats on that board. I chose salami and pepperoni. I know that turkey was in the sandwiches, but just eating turkey off a board would have been seen as a little weird to them, so I left it as an option to add on later if needed. Next, I added 3 cheeses. I added Colby jack, cheddar, and brie. The Food Network has a great guide to building a charcuterie board. This is where I spent a lot of time.
No tea party is great without some sweets. I made custom sugar cubes using this recipe. I knew Walmart had a pretty solid desserts section so I went there. I ended up purchasing cupcakes and mini donuts. My birthday month is January, so I had a few birthday coupons I could use. I ended up using my Edible Arrangements birthday gift and $5 off coupon that was in my account to get a 6-pack of dipped fruit and buy a cookie platter. I also had to have some dried fruit.
Dips and crackers were also necessary. I had honey butter from Sticky Situations, ranch, caramel dip, and chocolate dip. For bread, I bought garlic bread crostini, a French baguette that I sliced up, pita chips, and plain crackers.
To be a little healthy, I picked out fruits and vegetables. I had strawberries, grapes, apples, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries for fruits. For veggies, I bought English cucumbers and baby carrots. They got to be on their own tray.
At this point, you might be thinking that this is way too much food. I did not buy big bulk packs of anything. I bought the smaller sizes of foods.
I did have to map out where everything went to make sure it would fit.
Now it’s time for tea and drinks planning. This was my favorite part. I love beverages. Mostly non-alcoholic, I do enjoy tequila, vodka, and ciders on occasion. However, this was all zero proof. Of course, we had tea. I picked two teas that I knew we’d enjoy: Earl Grey and Honey Vanilla Chamomile. Additionally, I had Calypso lemonades that I mixed together, added water and edible glitter to; apple juice, white strawberry cranberry juice, and a specialty mocktail.
Now we need to decorate. I wanted there to be stars all around us so I purchased a garland and chunky confetti. I wanted to place a black table cloth down, add the confetti, and then place a clear sheet of plastic on top to prevent the confetti getting into the food. Next I needed to pick a centerpiece. I wanted something a little traditional so I went with flowers. The table cloth came in a pack of 3 so I took one of the extra plastic table cloths and cut down a bit and placed it into a vase from dollar tree. For flowers I chose faux lilacs, white roses, hydrangeas, and baby’s breath. For the sugar cubes, I decided on having star sugar cubes. I bought a 112 Star Silicone Mold and let them cure for about 24 hours before I put them into an air tight container.
For food presentation I bought 50 Piece Star Food Picks,
For each table setting I went to Target and bought 6 of the cute $3 teacups and saucer sets, 2 teapots for $5 each, and 2 packs of teaspoons that were floral themed and came in four packs. I used round paper doilies as the place setting. I bought a round tray for the fruits and veggies. For the deserts, charcuterie, and sandwiches, I bought this 5 piece set.
What if you don’t want the Target teacups? There are many places you can get tea sets as well. One idea I had was to thrift the cups, saucers, and pots.
Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t be. I created some free tools for you to use. All you need a Google account and a free Canva account.
Here’s a list of 70+ ideas.
Here’s a template and timeline you can use
Here’s a Google Sheet grocery & resource list you can use.