How to Live a Juicy Summer

Since warm weather is no longer a fantasy, it’s time to confirm that your summer party style is living up to your dream. The trick to turning your vision into reality is to inject the word “simple” into your vocabulary. Keep the level of fun at 100 degrees and lose the triple-digit stress. If an escape to a tropical island is what you envisioned, but is not on your horizon, then act locally and create your own sandbox as an avenue of escape. Charter the party plane and invite your crew to get away to your personal paradise. The easiest way to pull it off is by throwing a cool, tropical cocktail party that feels like a vacation.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Food and beverage
• Pens, paper and empty bottles
• Flowers, string, needles for leis
• Cocktail ingredients and recipe cards
• Chocolate fondue machine
• Containers, sand, treasure, shells, flowers, and grass
• Décor: sea-grass mats, hurricane vases, sea shells
• Lounge chairs, steamy novels
• Hibachi
• Paper and ink for the “ticket to paradise” invite

1. Round up the troops. Send your guests a “ticket to paradise” as an invitation. Compose it on your computer and e-mail or snail mail it with enough time for passengers to put it on their calendars. In the mood for an impromptu party? The phone is still the best way to reach out and touch someone. Just tell them to under-dress and wear a flower in their hair.
2. Set the mood. To create a relaxed atmosphere, keep it simple and let the clean lines and luxe colors featured in home décor magazines, clubs and restaurants be your guide. Think sandy neutrals and soft peach shell colors. Start with what you already have, then go out into the marketplace to supplement your look. Hang Capiz shell strands or curtains, lay sea-grass mats, take glass hurricanes filled with sand shells and peach-scented candles and line them up along a table or bar as the centerpiece.
3. Get inspired. The perfect vacation is one part chill-out and one part interaction. This party covers them both. Think about the setting of a hotel swimming pool for inspiration. Use your lounge chairs for seating and leave steamy novels on them (the kind of books you only have time to read on vacation).
4. Set up a lei-making area.
5. Set up a beach treasure hunt, taking inspiration from the Zen garden. Fill a zinc tray with sand, bury beach glass, sand dollars, and other surprises for guests to discover. Top the tray off with real or faux hibiscus flowers and tall grasses.
6. Serve a signature cocktail. The bar is usually the center of the party, so set it up with plenty of excuses for guests to mingle around it. Make your own cocktail and message-in-a-bottle theme. Set out the ingredients for your specialty cocktail along with the printed recipe. At the end of the bar, leave pen, paper and empty bottles with blank labels for guests to write messages to each other.
7. Be a takeout artist. Create a menu that’s a combination of what you like to make from scratch, what can be picked up at the market and what can be purchased already prepared. The nibbles are as simple as a bowl of macadamia nuts and sweet potato chips.
8. Keep the interactive element alive by setting up a hibachi and inviting guests to grill their own shrimp, chicken or beef skewers. Satisfy your sweet tooth with chocolate fondue and hunks of fresh coconut along with fresh fruit kabobs. Skewer hunks of seasonal fruits like peaches, pineapple and mango, brush with oil and let guests grill them on the hibachi.

Tips & Warnings

• This summer get-together isn’t about stress and budget, it’s about friends and fun, so relax if you don’t have a full set of glasses. Mix and match them. Cocktails taste the same no matter what they’re served in.
• It’s easy to get crazy and over-buy when you enter a party store. Remember to get the basics. That means you do not need the talking Santa dressed in a hula skirt that sings “Mele Kalikimaka.”

Who Can Help:

• Find Decorators & Designers Here. Compare Up to 4 Quotes, Free Service & No Obligation.