On Friday (16 May), Luke turned 30. A couple years ago for my 30th, Luke and our friends the Garners and Phillips threw me a very classy 30th birthday party with cocktail attire and lots of sparkling wine. So I decided to return the favour and throw a party to celebrate Luke.
First up was to design an invitation. Fortunately one of our friends is a graphic designer so I passed along my ideas and he produced the most amazing invitation ever! It was exactly what I wanted and set the tone for the party. Luke’s favourite whisky is the Old Pulteney 17. He will tell you it’s like drinking silk. So – I pulled images from the web of the OP17 bottle and this is our invitation.
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| Graphic design by Peter Gurry - www.gurrydesign.com |
Once the invites were ordered, I turned my focus to planning. Planning a party in the US is so easy – jump in your car, drive to Target, buy what you need – DONE! For the most part anyway. What you don’t find at Target, you get at the stores next door. This is not the case in the UK.
We don’t have a car so shopping involved taking the bus into Cambridge and then walking between stores. Not such a bad thing, until you start making purchases and you have to carry them from store to store because can’t put in them in the boot (trunk) of your car. This definitely limits how much you buy on each outing – and means that shopping will involve a number of outings. It is also much harder to find things here than it is at home. However, I definitely lucked out when it came to the glassware and struck gold at Tesco (our version of Wal-Mart) and found high ball glasses in the clearance aisle, pitchers that weren’t £5 ($8) each and champagne flutes for a good price.
I spent the Saturday before his birthday walking all around Cambridge making purchases all over town and actually fulfilling most of my list. The only things I had to order online were fairy lights for the back garden (yard) from Ebay and plates and forks from Amazon. (I about had a panic attack because the plates and forks hadn’t been delivered to the house by the day of the party. I had also ordered some face wash and received a note that it needed to be picked up from the distribution centre because we were not in to sign for it. We stopped by the centre on Saturday and as I stood in line, I realized that the slip was for two items. Royal Mail had attempted to deliver it and it was waiting for me. My day got so much better once that issue was resolved.)
Without Luke knowing, I contacted his cousin Morgan who has become an expert at making bow ties. She was kind enough to make bow ties for Luke, Luther and Theo. All three looked extremely handsome.
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| So dashing! |
Our good friends JT and Bethany Turner who live in Edinburgh came down for the weekend and it was great to have their help as we prepped for the party. They’re amazing friends and we really miss living in the same city as them.
I think we had about 30 people come to the party – which was perfect. We had just enough cake. And by the end of the night most of the food was gone. And it ended up being a beautiful evening. We couldn’t have asked for better weather during an English spring. AMAZING!
Thanks to everyone who was able to celebrate with us. We are so thankful to have such wonderful friends here in Cambridge.
Now to find excuses to host more parties and use all my stuff…..
Whisky Line-Up:
Old Pulteney 12
Auchentoshan Springwood
The Glenlivet Master Distillers Reserve
And Sparkling Wine and Sparkling Juice for the non-whisky drinkers
Menu:
Spicy Sausage Rolls
Veggies and Humus
Bruschetta
Cheese and Crackers
Raspberry Jalapeno Black Bean Dip
Fruit Salad
Melon, Mozzarella and Prosciutto Skewers
Birthday Cake:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake
Aubs, Luke & Luther
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