A "Game of Thrones" Premiere Party

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Winter is HERE! This past Sunday was the long awaited premiere for season 7 of Game of Thrones, and of course we threw a dinner party for it! Also SPOILERS if you're not caught up through the end of season 6 (no spoilers for the premiere episode, we promise!)

We are definitely taking full advantage of outdoor spaces while it's still gorgeous and summery out here in the PNW and we wanted this one to feel darker; more like things were dying. We, of course, chose to go with a kind of medieval feel outside, and the red table runner also looked sort of like a red carpet, which seemed perfect for a premiere! Flowers were darker and more minimal, and we made sure the light was at the center of it all, since the dark days of winter are upon us in Westeros. We tried to keep the color palette to blacks, grays, browns, reds, and navy throughout, and chose the darkest, most foreboding flowers we could find. The sign above the bar was just printed letters I cut and hole punched and strung on black twine I had on hand.

Rikki's husband hunts and loaned us the antlers, and we scattered candles and made the "Winter is Coming" sign from a free stock image and the free Game of Thrones font. Copper mule mugs and thrift store goblets got mixed in with alcohol bottles and our flowers.

Food this time was more spare, and kept to our darker color palette. Rikki made DELICIOUS black bread, and we of course used it for guest rite; bread and salt. No red weddings at this dinner party, we promise! We made a vertical cheese plate, complete with ash rind brie, blueberries, cornichons, salami slices, roasted garlic and onion jam, and some other cheeses with flat bread crackers.

Of course we had to do drinks with our appetizers, so my brother mixed up our signature cocktail for the night, The Lioness, and I made some Moscow Mules. The Lioness was basically a whiskey sour with a red wine float, and tasted like sangria, which was fun for a summer party!

Back inside, I had set up a "Valar Morghulis" banner, and created a kind of scorecard/play on the walls of faces of the Nameless God. All the major players through the series were represented, with the deceased printed off in grayscale, and the survivors in color. I grouped them loosely by house and added a "weirwood tree" which was just $12 of gladiolus from Trader Joe's, cut and arranged in a champagne bucket. Add in a cool branch candleholder I got 90% off at Target, a stack of books, and a framed Night's Watch Oath, and we had ourselves a very thrones-y scene for our viewing party. I made the cheesecake earlier that morning, and just made a simple strawberry sauce we poured over a raspberry pile to make it look kind of bloody and menacing; because the show is nothing if not bloody.

Back outside it was dinner time! We wanted all the food to look rustic and unfriendly, so we chose to do some dry rubbed ribs, steamed artichokes, and a mediterranean salad, alongside goblets of "Dornish Red". The candles had all started melting down beautifully at this point so we regrouped them all at the center of the table.

Dinner was pretty lively, everyone had had a couple drinks in them and we were chatting and laughing until we realized darkness was falling and it was starting to get late. We went inside to slice up the cheesecake then reconvened around the light for a little more conversation before the show. *cue intro music*

• What People Ate

  bread, cheese plate, ribs, artichokes, salad

• What People Drank

  custom cocktails & wine

• Desserts

  Berry cheesecake

• Activities / Games

  Watching the season 7 premiere of Game of Thrones!

• Rikki Rivera

  Co-blogger/Photographer

  Rikki is my co-blogger at https://www.theardentbiblio.com/ and a photographer at http://www.rikkirivera.com/