With the recent release of the latest installment of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, the upcoming release of the Twilight movie and Halloween being right around the corner, it seems the perfect time to plan and host a Twilight themed party for you and all your Cullen crazed friends.
Follow these suggestions and you will not only be the envy of fangirls everywhere but you’ll pull off an event worthy even of Alice’s admiration and praise.
1. Costumes: This can be easy or complex. You’re the host; you chose! Having your guests come in regular clothes would be fine. After all, the main characters are just high school kids to most of their world. If you want to make it more interesting (and always more fun), however, have your guests go all out. Certainly they can dress as Bella, their favorite of the Cullens or any of the Forks High kids but give points for creativity if you’re requiring a costume. A contest might be in order! Encourage guests to dress as werewolves, come in Prom attire, don the black robes of the Volturi or recreate the wild & savage looks of James, Victoria and Laurent when they were first introduced in Twilight. Breaking Dawn even provides an array of international vampires to emulate in dress and style. One last suggestion that would truly boost the Cool Factor on the costumes is for guests to take a look at styles of dress from the era the Cullens were made. A guest coming as Jasper might come in a Civil War style uniform. One dressed as Rosalie might choose something very stylish from the early 1930’s or, for the more dramatic, her wedding gown.
2. Setting: Your choice of settings may be limited to your family room or a basement. In that case, you will want to skip ahead to decorations. If you have a few more options, some of the following suggestions may be helpful to you.
·. Cook hot dogs (like the Quileute werewolves) and s’mores over the open flame for food. Check the restrictions for any beach in your area, however. Many do not allow parties or fires. If yours does not, don’t risk it!
· A vampire baseball game. Maybe you’re fortunate enough to live on a sizeable piece of cleared land or have access to a large clearing like the one featured so often in the Twilight series. A friendly game of baseball in honor of the Cullen’s favorite pastime might be an interesting addition to your party plans. You never really know your friends until you’ve engaged them in competitive sport! As with the beach suggestion, ask permission before using any property that is not yours for a party!
· A backyard Prom. Prom dress was mentioned previously in the costume section. Why not stage the Fork High Prom in your own backyard? The true school colors for Forks High School are blue and gold. Their mascot: the Spartans. Go crazy with balloons, lighting and crepe paper!
3. Decorations: If one of the setting suggestions above doesn’t work for you, try a few of the following ideas for sprucing up your available surroundings.
· Go for limited lighting. After all, vampires don’t need a lot of light and don’t seem to like to be in the light very much anyway. Use ambient light in the form of small side lamps, solid color Christmas lights and candlelight as much as possible. (Remember your fire safety when using candles and if you are planning to host a lot of people in a small space, it’s best to skip them altogether.) Go for elegant in your space. The Cullens, after all, have impeccable taste!
· Take your inspiration from the book covers. You can do some great things with red ribbon, red-tipped white carnations or other flowers (can be purchased in large bouquets from most florists for little money), and red apples. Have a little fun and paint some over-sized white and red chess “Queens” on large pieces of cardboard (like an appliance box) to cut out and stand around the room. Drape walls and furnishings with black fabric or sheets and add some red and white Christmas lights around the ceiling for extra effect.
4. Food: Well, we know that the vampires in our story don’t eat actual food but I don’t recommend setting up an animal hunt or serving blood at your party! You can stick with your theme without getting gory! Food doesn’t have to be the focal point of this gathering and can be as simple or elaborate as you’d like it to be. Again, going with the theme from the cover of the book, you can make sure to serve several things involving red apples. An easy option there is simply to cut the apples, skin on, and serve with caramel dip. You can also make your favorite cheese ball, shape it like an apple, roll it in paprika for color then add a piece of cinnamon stick for the stem and a bay leaf. Serve red punch. A basic recipe for that is to combine 1 pouch each of cherry and strawberry drink mix (like Wyler’s or Kool-Aid), 1-12 oz. can each of thawed frozen lemonade and orange juice mix, 2 cups of sugar, 4 quarts of cold water and 1 liter of ginger ale, making sure to mix carefully in a large punch bowl. Float apple rings or rinsed flowers on the top. Serve pizza in honor of the only bite of food we see Edward take or make an Italian inspired spread in honor of Edward and Bella’s first “date” when he took her to dinner in Port Angeles, don’t forget the breadsticks and mushroom ravioli! Remember, you can always come up with silly or clever names related to the books for old party food standards such as “Bella Mozarella” for cheese sticks. Give it some thought and have a lot of fun with what you decide to call your dishes.
5. Activities: Truly, no activities are necessary and several have already been mentioned but for the sake of having a little extra fun, here are a few thoughts. Create a Twilight trivia challenge. If you can’t think of enough questions yourself, there are several sites on the Internet that will provide you with some stumpers. Recreating the game “Taboo” could make for a fun and creative way to describe your favorite places, characters and scenes from the books. Play “Fictionary” where, like Pictionary, the guests have to draw different aspects of the story for their teams to guess. Being creative and taking a little extra time, you can think of many more games that could be easily converted to a Twilight party game. Again, a costume contest with several categories (Most Original, Most Like What I Imagined, Most Realistic, etc.) may be a good idea if your guests really got into the idea of dressing up for your event. If you’re hosting a prom theme Twilight party, crown a King and Queen and have a dance contest (make sure you take note of the clumsy ones or the ones who don’t like to dance at all so they get special recognition for being the most “Bella” of the Ball). For a movie themed party, if your guests dressed up, have a presentation where those dressed as the characters get the opportunity to “accept” their mock awards. The possibilities really are endless if you put your mind to it or there’s no harm done in just enjoying the atmosphere you’ve created and mingling with friends. No doubt there will be plenty for you all to talk about!
Theme parties can be some of the best parties and Twilight provides so much material to work with for devoted fans. Whether you are planning for a themed Halloween bash, a much anticipate movie premiere or just to hang out with those like-minded friends who worship the saga like you do, this will be a memorable and exciting way to commemorate a time when you loved a book this much. That time may never come again so savor it…with a party!
**Twilight, Breaking Dawn, and all plot information, character names and story details are the property of Stephenie Meyer.
