How to Plan a 75th Birthday Tea Party
Giving a tea party is no longer something taught to every young girl. Having friends to a celebratory tea, however, is a wonderful way to mark a 75th birthday or other special occasion for someone who grew up with afternoon teas. Make cookies and finger sandwiches, set your table, and invite friends to greet the birthday guest. Those who have friends for tea often will remind you that the best polish for your silver spoon is frequent use. Make the party special by asking all invited guests to contribute a page to a 75th-birthday memory book, a unique gift for the guest of honor. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Silver or other tea service
- Serving utensils for coffee or punch (if desired)
- Dining table or other good-sized table to hold tea, other beverage(s), and food
- Flowers for tea table and possibly small occasional tables
- Chairs
- Cups and saucers
- Small plates (one set for finger foods, an additional set for birthday cake)
- Tea spoons and cake forks
- Small paper or cloth napkins
- Serving plates for finger sandwiches and cookies
- Pictures of the birthday guest, friends, and family
- Small guest or memory book
- Camera for party pictures
- Party favors (optional)
Instructions
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Plan seating for your guests. If you cannot seat everyone, try to make certain that there are chairs for guests over 50 years old. The old-fashioned art of juggling a pocketbook, a tea cup, and something delicious perched on the saucer while standing is one that is best forgotten.
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Provide small tables by chairs wherever possible. Tables should provide space for a tea cup with saucer and a small plate for cookies and sandwiches. For a festive look, tables can be decorated with tiny vases of flowers resembling those in the main tea table arrangement.
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Prepare tea and an alternative beverage. A lightly carbonated or non-carbonated non-alcoholic punch is suitable. Some hostesses offer coffee as well as tea.
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Plan all food so that it is easily managed with fingers. Tea in the United States is not a meal, so all sandwiches, sweet breads, cookies, or other confections should be small (consumable in two to three bites, maximum) and not leave fingers sticky or greasy. Dips or sauces suitable to a stand-up cocktail party or informal buffet do not work well for tea. Both food and drink take second place to conversation, which is the main reason to have guests for tea.
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Honor your birthday guest's contemporaries by asking them to help pour tea or punch. Customarily, these honored helpers sit at the ends of the table. They can serve tea or punch or, in case of infirmity, greet guests as they come to the table while younger guests do the serving.
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Serve cake separately, once all guests have had tea and finger foods. Clear finger-food plates and refill cups. Fresh plates with cake and forks can be brought to seated guests.
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Reserve gift-giving until after all refreshments have been served. If the 75th birthday involves memories, mementos, or tribute speeches, these can also be presented after refreshments. Save the 75th-birthday book for last. With refreshments out of the way, guests are free to move around and will enjoy sharing their and other guests' memory pages with the guest of honor. From a great-grandchild's crayon drawing to a childhood playmate's memory of fun times, a 75th-birthday book is as distinctive as the life your birthday celebrant has led.
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Take lots of pictures and make certain all guests sign a large keepsake card or guest book if you did not create a memory book. Together, these will create a long-lasting memory of a happy 75th birthday party.
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Tips & Warnings
Invite guests for a time between 3 and 4 p.m. and expect them to stay approximately 1 1/2 to 2 hours. In a community where dinner is customarily served at 7 p.m. or later, tea can start as late as 4:30 p.m., but traditionally tea was timed so that women could get home to start family dinner.
On a party invitation, tea is usually scheduled "at" a particular time, and guests are expected close to that time, rather than the more informal "between __ and ___," which permits guests to arrive at any time and implies that the party will run on after all latecomers have arrived. Tea may not be a meal, but it is an occasion.
References
- Photo Credit teacups image by Mikhail Olykainen from Fotolia.com
