Relief Society Mad Hatter Unbirthday Party

I was on the Relief Society committee for our Relief Society Birthday social. Our theme was centered around Alice in Wonderland's Mad Hatter tea party. Here is the invitation that each lady received. (It also had a white chocolate rabbit on it but I ate mine before I thought about taking a picture)

 

We wanted to make the focus of our social having the women branch out and get to know other women. As you entered the church, you were given a name tag with three tea pots on it. Each tea pot coordinated with a different table. For the salad, you would be at the first table, for dinner you switched to the second table, and finally dessert you were at the third color.

 

And here we are entering the room. We had two trees on the walls from the movie where Alice encounters the Cheshire cat.

 

For the rest of the room decorations we wanted to mimic the mad hatter tea party scene. From the ceiling we hung white lights. From the lights hung paper lanterns and tissue paper balls.

 

We had a table set up with this cute homemade Cheshire cat that one of the decorating committee made. Also we had a centerpiece on the buffet tables. To make bowls look like tea cups, we took laminated paper and taped them to the side of the bowl.

  

We had a total of eight tables. The colors we used were: pink, red, purple, blue, yellow, dark green, and lime green. Each table had a table cloth and four balloons that matched the color.

 

 

We had a few extra touches on all the tables. The balloons were tied to a dessert rack (for the dessert round we brought two plates of finger desserts to each table). With the balloons we had "eat me" tags.

 

In the center of the dessert trays were a bowl with colored papers with get to know you questions. At the beginning of each round the ladies were encouraged to take a question and answer it to the table. This was our way of encouraging women to get to know other women in the ward. (I typed up a total of 80 questions so no two questions were the same). Each bowl had ten questions and we sat 7 at each table. This way, if someone didn't like their question there were extras to exchange.

 

So that each table felt like its own little tea party, we put mismatched mugs on each table and filled them with paper fluff.

 

For the food, the tables were set with a plate, fork, napkin and cup. Each table was brought a bowl of salad. We had a spinach salad that had tomatoes, mandarin oranges, and pineapple in it with Kraft creamy poppy seed dressing. SO GOOD!! Each table also had a plate of bread and a plate of butter. At the end of the salad round ladies threw away their plate and fork and kept their napkin and cup.

Here is the water station. The little signs say "Drink me"

  

For dinner we had a potato bar. Tables were called up by color to get dinner. We had little signs that said "Unwrap me" for the potatos "toss me" for the foil, and "top me" for everything you needed on top.

 

During dessert, we asked one of the relief society sisters to speak to the group and tie in the themes from Alice in Wonderland to the gospel. One thing she said that stood out to me is that we can all look at life as "being thrown in a rabbit hole" trying to find our way out. It is important to use the guide's we have been given, like the scriptures, to find the right path home.