Tale as Old as Time Enchanted Tea Party

Our daughter has been asking for a "fancy" tea party for a long time, so I wanted to do it in the style of the new Beauty and the Beast film. I adore the Rococo decor in the film. It reminds me of many of the palaces we've been visiting here in Berlin, Germany (particularly the Gold Room in Charlottenburg Palace). A lot of powder blue with deep gold molding. I wanted to incorporate that into her cake. I also wanted to make it reminiscent of the one my mother put together for me when I was five and the first version of the film came out, so I embellished the cake with figurines from the new film.

For our tea party, I requested that parents let me know in advance who would be able to enjoy a proper tea with real teacups, and who would prefer to patron Gaston's Tavern outside for a rowdier time. This worked out perfectly. I put out my childhood tea set for the children, and offered them a fruity herbal tea, while adults were offered Rosé and afternoon tea out of one of my favorite tea sets I found at an antique market here in Berlin. Each place setting also included a "fancy" water glass (cheap stemmed wine glass), by request of the birthday girl.

For our outdoor tavern, I printed a photo of Gaston, since he likes photos of himself in his pub. I ran out of time to put some sort of antlers up, but how fun would that be? The rowdy tavern crowd was happy and enjoyed bouncing on the bouncy castle while the focussed group did our craft activity inside.

It was such a lovely party and our daughter enjoyed every enchanted moment!

• What People Ate

  I served some savory tea sandwiches, some fruit, strawberry "roses", chocolates, teacakes slightly larger than petit fours, and some ginger cookies I decorated to match the cake. For our outdoor tavern, I printed a photo of Gaston, since he likes photos of himself in his pub. I ran out of time to put some sort of antlers up, but how fun would that be? I served root beer floats in some fun tavern mugs we got here in Germany, as well as assorted pretzels with spreads, cheeses, muscle-man chocolates, and deer shaped ginger cookies. The rowdy tavern crowd was happy and enjoyed bouncing on the bouncy castle while the focussed group did our craft activity inside. For our outdoor tavern, I served root beer floats in some fun tavern mugs we got here in Germany, as well as assorted pretzels with spreads, cheeses, muscle-man chocolates, and deer shaped ginger cookies.

• Party Favors

  I prefer giving party favors that are keepsakes or functional, rather than giving a bag of cheap junk and sugar. We made kid-friendly roller bottles of perfume made with coconut oil and therapeutic grade essential oils approved by parents. They also took home the "stained glass" window clings they made. They loved it!

• Activities / Games

  For our craft activity, we made "stained glass" window clings. A couple days before the party, I precut the window cling paper, stenciled a rose on it and added lines to replicate the stained glass in the film. I had the children wear smocks, and gave them each a paper plate as a palette and put a small amount of each color window cling paper on it for them to brush on as they choose. This was so much fun, I'll definitely do another window cling craft at future parties!