Hen Party Afternoon Tea!!!!

Ok, so i'm going to warn you now, this is going to be a bit of a long one! So you might want to grab a cup of tea first... So - UNBELIEVABLY exciting - one of my best friends is getting married today!! Just too exciting for words, especially as I get to be a bridesmaid! As a bridesmaid, one of the main duties is to send the bride out into married life with a bang in the form of an awesome hen party. I think me and the other bridesmaid, Sarah, managed that one!!


It was all a surprise to Gen (the bride to be) which made it super fun for us to see all of her reactions. The day started off at her house with an afternoon tea. There were cupcakes (vanilla with vanilla frosting and chocolate with a chocolate ganache. The vanilla recipe is here) with initials and hearts on...

... and mousses; one chocolate (the recipe's here, although I didn't do a ganache layer. Instead, I covered the top in simple chocolate curls - a whole lot easier!) and the one below is a strawberry, white chocolate and rhubarb layered mousse. Oh it's good. It's so so good. The kind of thing that you eat in total disbelief that you made it! I still dream about the light, creamy and smooth fruity mousse layers. Ahem, drooling slightly but moving on!

We also decorated her front room - the theme was black and pink, so we had these swags of tissue paper heart chains. Just too pretty!
I think my favorite decoration were these woven hearts. I originally thought of making bunting but I just couldn't figure out how it would work with the slightly more 'modern' feel of the pink and black theme. So when I found the tutorial for these hearts on Once Wed, I just knew they'd be perfect! It took me a while to get the paper right (plain doesn't really work - both papers ideally need to be patterned) but once you've settled on two papers, the making of these is a sinch. But they look so effective, don't you think?

We also asked all the girls who attended the hen do to write notes to the bride to be, wishing her well in married life. We're opening the notes this morning over breakfast! That's the main reason I couldn't post about the hen do sooner - Gen doesn't know about this surprise either! I'm expecting some tears over brekkie... Good tears though!

And then there were the supplies for the evening festivities - the sash...

Very easy to make with some satin, black felt and paper backed iron on webbing. Much better than the normal tacky affair!

...and the fascinator - Gen had mentioned she'd seen some girls on a hen night wearing little birdcage veils so I whipped up this cute little number!

I really should have taken some photos as I went along as it's not really from a tutorial, but there's a great one on Once Wed that this is very loosely based on. Fascinators are very easy and so effective! A fun, short project for a rainy sunday - I'm not good at long craft projects as I tend to lose focus...

I wish I could give you all the details of the evening, but what happens on a hen night stay on a hen night I'm afraid! And the photos just aren't appropriate for public viewing... ;-) Needless to say, a good time was had by all!!

The next day, after a slow start, the mother of the bride, the bride and us two bridesmaids went for a leisurely lunch and to listen to some jazz at Thackerays. The perfect end to the perfect weekend!

So good luck to G and J today!!!! I could not imagine a more perfect couple and I'm so SO lucky to have such fabulous friends. Lots of love and wedding wishes guys!

Rosy xx