5 Top Tips For Your Amazing Harry Potter Party

I started Organising my company’s Harry Potter Christmas party and seeing for myself how many ideas for themes there are!

First of all my task along with the organizing committee was to come up with an event to remember. “A spectacular Christmas party for everyone at head office’, that’s what the email on my Macbook screen currently had on it. I carry on reading and see the last section of text where it reads, ‘Organising Committee can have the choice of the theme’.  This news would make the team very happy.  At least it did me, this would be the perfect event for my Harry Potter ideas.

That usual mixture of dread and excitement started taking hold. Breathing deeply, taking stock of the mammoth task ahead, I dove in.  I had worked out the four most important areas that needed discussing first. These were: Budget, date, theme, and location. Of course, these would be the starting blocks for the whole event. I knew that until we worked out the specifics we wouldn’t need to come back to the budget.

1 – Remembering to deal with the basics first.

The theme and the location were the hardest to tackle.  The earlier email had set the bar high. I knew we had a hard task, yet right in the back of my mind, I knew if it became a Harry Potter theme the event would be a success. I had to wait for the meeting and hope the team went for it.

The results of a good nights sleep are incredible, I had awoken refreshed and bushy tailed.  In front of me was my board of ideas and one of my vices, coffee. After having breakfast and drinking my latte, I finally looked at my Harry Potter theme ideas. I picked up my bag, my board and my latte [reuasable/recyclable cups are a winner right?].  My shoes clicked on the tiles and the bells on my bag jingled with them. An almost magical tune sounded, forming the ideas from my board into reality.  I headed to work thinking of the possibilities. [Insert magical Harry Potter Music]

Event meeting success.

The team went for my ideas and the excitement was growing.  The magical Harry Potter theme tune that we all know and love is playing louder in my head.  The music is called ‘Hedwig’s Theme’, and encompasses magic as a whole.  This piece is represented in all the movies.

We had booked an old country house in Banbury, Oxfordshire.  The location and the old house represented everything we wanted to match the Harry Potter theme. The sculpture gallery has winding corridors reminiscent of the Hogwarts halls.  With these corridors, it would mean the decor wouldn’t need as much attention.  This would blend beautifully with the HP theme.  We would be able to use the majority of our budget for entertainment and decorations.  Due to the venue providing us with our own theme food as part of the location budget.

Organising the Harry Potter party theme night.

Hedwig’s theme is now silently playing every time I revisit the event. I mean that literally, as I have my headphones in and have it on repeat [apparently Harry Potter isn’t appropriate music for our clients to listen to, hence the headphones].  Organizing an event when you’re in the middle of a high paced corporate office environment isn’t as easy as the films may lead you to believe.  Therefore it is with great joy that word of mouth and friends come in, pointing you in the right direction.  The event staff from the firm would also pitch in on the night to help all vendors where needed.  This would include helping friends with photos, photobooths etc.  All vendors are allocated full access to the same food & drink free that the staff are and allocated a time suiting everyone to break and eat.

2 – The Harry Potter Party Event Board.

I can finally reveal my all-important event board.  These thoughts and ideas of mine have been turned into my tricks of the trade. My mood board is a collection of ideas and pictures. Similar to Pinterest I collect pictures from magazines or newspapers and paste them into my book.   In my book, I had a picture of each of the Hogwarts House’s scarves which we used for the correct colors. Then we used this idea to have four long tables (Hogwarts Hall), each having the tablecloths and runners in the house colors. As well as decoration relevant to each house; flowers for Hufflepuff, etc.  We would have matching house props per table.

I even go as far as to put swatches of material to represent color and texture for the theme.  I have a big fury brown pillow swatch perfect for Hagrid’s room!  The mood board is a combination of other peoples ideas and mine, that I will change with unique twists. In addition to the overall theme, there will be a page for each room showing how each one flows.  Entrance hall, Great Hall, Pitch etc.

3 – The Checklist.

  • Decoration
  • Music
  • Band
  • Bar
  • Photobooth
  • Photographer

4 – Finding the all-important vendors for our HUGE HP event.

The checklist may seem small however the DETAILS are what brings this checklist to life.  The decoration has to be relevant to the HP theme.  We have decided between the team to use our own skills.  Using ideas from the scene in Harry Potter where Mrs. Weasley enchants knitting needles to magically knit by themselves.  Three members of staff are knitting items of clothing and attaching them to knitting needles suspended in the corner of the room.  Tablecloths and runners were purchased to match the house colors.  Using a generous £500 budget, Pinterest, mood boards and a lot of talent from the team.  A magical room was created.  The bar even had a moving wall, where it played on a loop a scene from Hogsmeade. It really was like you were seeing it through the bar window!

Secure your vendors with a deposit!

For the music, we decided the best route was to look through google then move on to recommendations from that.  This idea proved very successful and we managed to find a company that would provide us with a Violin Duet. The Violin Duet would play pieces of music from the Harry Potter movies.  This would definitely add to the theme.  We had the extra benefit of the DJ specializing in Themed Events, he had even tailored music to a Harry Potter event already!

The bar and the photographer were easy.  The venue and the package already came with food which would be Harry Potter themed. We were just adding extras to the package. We decided to use my partner as a photographer/videographer.  As he is a freelance graphic designer, he has ties with an incredible photographer, whilst also being a one himself.  We extended an invitation to his colleague and wife, in return for a reduced rate in pictures. My partner would help out with the editing. Each couple/single/group would get a photo each to take home at the event.

The Harry Potter Photo Booth

We had decided that we needed something unusual at the event that really would scream Harry Potter. We googled Photobooths and came up with a fantastic company.  They would come with Harry Potter themed backdrops and props.  And everyone can have their photo taken, dressed like they are in the film!  This was an excellent package with the ability to have our pictures on the night. This booth and all the themed extras would solidify this party as the best one the company has seen yet.

5 – The Extras

The Photobooth company had sent us photos and what we expect to get with the package.  It was immense, the package contained so many unique HP themed props we knew it would look spectacular.  With this, we decided a few extras were needed just to add that extra finesse.

Recipe for alcoholic and nonalcoholic butterbeer, and ‘Honey Duke’s looking sweets to serve as canapes – price for the venue to make all of these as part of their food package.

Uniquely designed invites*

The Quidditch Game* – (invented by myself and partner over a morning coffee).

Props (large pumpkins, Christmas trees, hanging owls flying over the ceiling) we would source and make these with our amazing woodworkers in the company.

We Proudly present – The Harry Potter Christmas Party!

You know the number of guests that are arriving, and how they are getting there. You know the rooms they are walking through, as well as what needs to be decorated. The team had been discussing using a company that has a bus that looks like the Night Bus.  However, the budget wouldn’t allow for it.  These ideas had all come from little-scribbled notes I wrote on my board. I would write a list of things that would cover the general theme of ‘Harry Potter’ like, broom, magic, wand, owl, Hogwarts etc.  After adding pictures that matched the idea in my head I would start adding a list of the more fun aspects. This would include music, entertainment, games, photos etc. Finally, after adding minute details to each of the requirements behind each subject, the night arrived.

MAGICAL

If there was one word to describe the feeling we all got when we walked into the ‘Entrance Hall’, Magical would cover it.  Flame lights and sails surrounded the metal gates, that were guarding the spectacular centerpiece.  As we drove around the large metal phoenix.  Acrobats and trapeze artists were twirling through the air, ribbon dancers were tumbling to the ground.  Walking through the forbidden forest, sitting on Hagrid’s pillow for a photo,  with firebreathers prancing towards the “Great Hall”.  Around us, as we enter, male and female servers dressed as mermaids and centaurs offer us Honey Dukes sweets and Butterbear.

We sit down at the house tables after being sorted by a sorting hat and begin the meal listening to the wonderful violinists.  They play their way through Hedwig’s Theme and various other notable HP music.  The food is glorious, you can see the moving Diagon Alley wall behind the bar.  The photographer is capturing every wonderful moment especially the Quidditch Game*.  When it comes to photobooths WE HADNT SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT.  It was spectacular and even the huge queue was worth it! As the guests were queuing, they were playing a Harry Potter question game with shots! Everyone’s photo was brilliant. The photobooth compnay was fantastic and had provided everything and more for entertaiment and memories.

The Harry Potter Chrismas Party Ends

The Night was drawing to an end, Hedwig’s Theme once loud in my head, grew quieter.  The specialized DJ had on tracks played from the films, from acts such as ‘The Weird Sisters’ really pulling the whole theme together. All of the suppliers stayed for dancing and more photos and actually became an integral part of the whole event.  Everything had come together exactly how it was foreseen. And it all started with that one email, that little board of images and the magical 5 top tips. And Hedwig’s Theme came to a glorious end.

This game is played with one person. Two small Quaffles, a broom, and 3 quidditch hoops.  One person takes a shot or a sip of the drink, then holds a broom between their legs with one hand, on one leg whilst throwing a small Quaffle type ball in one of the scaled-down Quidditch Hoops.  Whoever gets the best score with two balls goes on to the final at the end of the night with the other highest.

Peaky Blinders 40th Birthday Party

My husband and his mates are definitely not a gang. An eclectic mix of lawyers for the most part, they are usually found on the other side of the law. However, they all have one real passion in common: The Peaky Blinders. It probably plays on everything they have to suppress in their day jobs, or something.

photo cyrstal gift

When all else comes and goes, and family and life has really transformed the friendships over the last few years, Peaky Blinders has gone on uniting them. Therefore, with his 40th birthday coming up there was no real choice to be made – I was going to throw a 1920s Peaky Blinders theme party.

peaky blinder theme party
peaky blinder theme party

Getting Started

Decision made I actually started to panic. I wanted it to be epic and memorable. I ended up Googling away and not really hitting on what I wanted to find. So I went back to the drawing board (the series) and came up with my own take on all things Peaky Blinder.

 

“I’ve heard very bad, bad, bad things about you Birmingham people.”

Every time I came up with a winning idea, that’s the quote that went through my mind. Living in Birmingham ourselves, it was somewhat apt. It spurred me on: this was going to be a bad, bad, bad party – for all the right reasons.

The Peaky Blinders Party Theme

I got stuck in. I hired the local hall. This was both helpful and a hindrance. I decided the central thrust of the success of the party would be getting the theme right and ensuring everything fitted with this: décor, invitations, costumes, food, drink, music, and of course the cake.

On discovering that you can’t find much specifically aimed at a Peaky Blinders theme party I opened this out to the 1920s gang theme. By searching for things such as ‘The Great Gatsby party’ I found a great deal of inspiration.

Peaky Blinders Décor

I settled on a colour palette of gold, black and white. This was most definitely going to be an adult only 40th birthday party. This was great for the invitations and enabled a simple yet classy design.

However, it was too stark for the décor without making it a bit more rustic, especially in the local hall which is used as a preschool. I wanted to somehow add in that sepia murky feel that runs through the show. Therefore, in addition to the gold glitter curtains, gold paper plates, white tablecloths, and the trio of colours paper pompoms, I also added in a hired smoke machine. I then used warm white fairy lights and large sheeting to cover notice boards.

I really struck gold because a friend of ours leant me some old wooden beer barrels. I used these as ‘bar tables’ in the open space of the party room. On these I put a few props such as a fake gun or two, flat caps, cigars, pearl necklaces and feathers. I also have some wooden crates which were useful just to add to the décor.

On Arrival

When guests turned up they were greeted with a sign on the door: “This place is under new management, by order of the Peaky Blinders.” Along with the Peaky Blinders dress code (flat caps and waistcoats reigned supreme!) this really got everyone in to the Peaky Blinders mood.

One of my favourite moments of the evening was opening the door to my husband’s best friends who announced: “Alright lads, this is a respectable event and we will all behave accordingly.” All fans of the series, they instantly got in the mood whilst my ‘bouncer’ brother stood confiscating ‘guns’ at the door!

Peaky Blinders Food and Drink

I settled on a buffet of canape style food. We needed something to soak up the alcohol but I didn’t want to be stuck in the kitchen all night. I have to confess I cheated somewhat here. I bought ready-made pork pies, pigs in blankets, bar snacks, but I did make some devilled eggs. We also had an enormous cheeseboard. I got a Peaky Blinders themed cake made.

I did go to town on the drinks, after all they are so central to the show. My first stop was to get whiskey, and lots of it. My husband and his friends aren’t shy when it comes to enjoying their tipple. However, this time we went for Irish whiskey more in keeping with the theme but I also added in both Guinness and Smithwick’s to the bar area.

However, if I left it there then the wives and girlfriends wouldn’t have had such a great choice. In keeping with the 1920s theme I extended the bar area to include cocktail paraphernalia and recipe cards. Of course, the ‘Old-Fashioned Blinder’ had pride of place, but I also offered vodka and various mixers. We hired plenty of martini glasses which really added to the atmosphere too.

We also needed some champers to toast the birthday boy and this fitted the theme perfectly. In fact, I had the bottles around the place purely as part of the décor!

The Music

We love love love the music in Peaky Blinders so that got added to the theming. I found a great and useful playlist from the series here. Tunes like ‘Danny Boy’, ‘Broken Boy Soldier’ and ‘Red Right Hand’ featured but we also added in a bit of jazz and the Charleston for fun.

The Entertainment

What with the music, food and drink I didn’t want to do too much organised entertainment. We don’t often all get the chance to catch up and celebrate these days so we wanted a chance for everyone to chat and dance.

However, I did add in a couple of casino themed ideas with an area set up for Poker, and a simple game themed on betting on horses – again a nod to the Peaky Blinders series.

We also wanted to really capture the spirit of the night without the constant click of smartphone cameras. We hired a photo booth for our Peaky Blinders theme party and I got together a load of props such as headbands, feathers, cigars, fedoras, pearl necklaces and fake guns. The photos are hilarious and we love looking back at them.

Hopefully the memories of my husband’s 40th birthday Peaky Blinders party will keep everyone going until the next series finally comes in 2019. He really did have a Blindin’ Birthday, and our guests had a Blindin’ good time.

Photo booth hire at Star City – Stuck in the lift

Photo booth hire at Star City

All my photo booth equipment got stuck in the lift during a photo booth hire at Star City. It all happened when I arrived for Ellie’s 21st Birthday party. I’ve been to Star City several time, so I know the place well. It did not occur to me that I’d need to use the lift to take the photo booth up to the first floor of goals soccer centre where they have a function room. I thought the safest way to get the heavy stuff up was to use the disability access lift.

I packed the photo booth equipment in with the help of the security guard. After that, I went up the stairs to call the lift. Halfway up, the lift got stuck. This became a race against time. Panic! will I resolve this situation in time for booking start time?

The very helpful security guard made a call to the manager. With a lot of trial and error, we were soon able to send the lift back down. He knew what he was doing. In no time, we were able to send the lift back up again this time in 3 separate trips.  I went straight into auto pilot mode, unpacking, assembling and setting up. Yes we made it. The photo booth was ready to use bang on time. With a lot of sweat and scrapes of course.

Sometimes when you book a venue and want to have a photo booth, you may be worried about space. The allocated space was small but the booth was able to fit in. The guests didn’t mind squeezing around it to get in. Our recommended floor space a full photo booth setup is 3 meters by 3 meters. They took lots of photos and loved every moment of it. The theme was gold and black and we designed a nice photo template to go with it.

If you’re unsure of whether the space you have will do for the photo booth hire, you can always contact us to discuss this.

Fireworks night photo booth in Milton Keynes

Fireworks night photo booth in Milton Keynes

4th of November fireworks welcomed me into Milton Keynes. I drove to the Great Linford Memorial Hall venue to provide a double 21st birthday party photo booth. The venue was immaculately decorated in the Silver and Purple colour themes and the DJ was on point through out the whole night.
It was a fun filled night with friends and family of Harry and Holly. The guests left lovely messages and birthday wishes alongside their photo booth pictures in the guest book.
There was a memory board of funny but cute photos of the birthday boy and girl. Everyone was suave and Holly’s dad on the dance floor put everyone to shame. He definitely could bust a move.

Photo booth at The Belfry was a magical night

Magic photo booth at The Belfry!

Oh the perks of providing photo booth at The Belfry! I was lucky to witness some outstanding magic tricks at the Veolia HR Conference 2017 hosted at The Belfry Hotel and Resort, Sutton Coldfield. There were gasps and cheers as David the magician of Britain’s Got Talent fame moved from table to table entertaining the guests with some spectacular tricks.
Bliss photo booth also caught some of the magic. From the start of the evening, we don’t know how we were able to fit so many people into one booth. After each photo there was such a long trail of people coming out of the booth I had to do a double take to see if the booth was bigger than normal.

number of people in photo booth
We provided the ultimate photo booth experience to about 150 guests at the conference and everyone enjoyed themselves. I heard so many North and South puns as a little competition started between the North and South teams to see who had the best pose idea with the photo booth props.
If I was asked to judge, I’d say who. It was a classy evening with the live band music, magnificent venue and charming guests. An evening worth remembering with the photos from the photo booth.

Favourite photo booth props used during the photo booth at the belfry

The two favourite props of the night were The Viking Horns and the Jumbo Hot Dog.

photo booth viking horn and sausage propPlease don’t ask me to retell the jokes made about these 2 props. All in all, it was a night to remember. We’ll be happy to provide our services to Veolia HR Conference again. Veolia HR Conference 2018. See you there. If you ever want to hire a photo booth at The belfry you can contact us. I’m also seriously considering putting in my application to David as a magicians assistant.

Christmas Party Photo Booth in Evesham

Primafruit Christmas Party Photo Booth

Blissphotobooth services were requested for a Christmas Party Photo Booth in Evesham but  the party started even before I got to Evesham.  For once the motorways were incident free. It was more or less a leisurely cruise from Birmingham to Evesham with great pop Christmas tunes blasting on the radio.

No untoward traffic, no road rage, no crazy motorway driving. This is more than I could hope for as the rush of the Christmas season is already in. The only thing slightly annoying was the monstrous lorries driving a tad too fast with their multiple lights glaring round sharp corners along the A44 to Evesham. That and the intermittent loss of transmission on the radio causing a chink in my Christmas zone music.

Christmas party event venue

I arrived at Bar 24  (24 -25 Cowl St, Evesham WR11 4PN) early enough to set up and was ready a good 20 minutes before photo booth booking start time.

Christmas party event DJ

Richard T of DJT entertainments (djentertainments@gmail.com t:07815130497) was also already setup when I got there. Withing a few minutes of listening to his sounds, you could tell he was an experienced hand. The evening was getting more and more promising.

Surprise from the host

Denise from PRIMAFRUIT  greeted me with 3 coupons for any drink of my choice from the bar.

free drinks coupons photo booth in birmingham
Trust me they were very handy when the place started to get really HOT!

The Blissphotobooth experience

The first guests walked up to me and asked how much it cost to use the photo booth.  I smiled and said its part of the evening entertainment organsied by your company so it’s FREE! They gave a big Whoop! and jumped straight in. Curtains closed, the laughter started the photo booth was swaying, they were rushing to change props before the next click of the camera. When they got out, they were still laughing and out of breath.

A couple of the guys said this was the first time they had a photo booth at their Christmas party and they were loving every moment of it. They hope to have it again at their next Christmas do.

It was a party to remember. We had lots of fun and enjoyed ourselves delivering a great Christmas party photo booth in Evesham.

Some Pictures from the photo booth in Evesham

Wedding photo booth Walsall – bliss and splendour at Fairlawns Hotel

Wedding photo booth Walsall

There was bliss and splendour at The Fairlawns hotel on 21st October 2016. We got this opportunity when we responded to a ‘wedding photo booth walsall’ enquiry on bark.com.

Blissphotobooth delivered yet another fun packed wedding photo booth in Walsall for Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s wedding.

The Fairlawns hotel is a very classy wedding reception venue with professional and friendly staff and a chilled out ambience. You will find it in a sharp corner on Little Aston road, A454, Walsall.
Fairlawns hotel
When we got there, the staff quickly directed us to the place allocated for the photo booth and they helped with clearing the space and brought us a much needed refreshing cold drink after the photo booth was set up.

Within a few minutes of the booth being ready, the children at the reception were in there snapping away, cheering each other on whiles they raced to change their props. All the laughter and excitement soon brought the adults in and in no time there was a long queue for the booth.

Trust blissphotobooth to quickly bring the extra buzz to an event. This wedding photo booth package included a guest book and lots of new funky props. Everyone loved it and we were pleased to be a part of such a 5-star event.

Jess & Millie’s Bliss Birthday party photo booth Burton upon Trent

Double birthday photo booth Burton upon Trent

This Friday 14th October, blissphotobooth.co.uk was in Burton on Trent for a double 14th birthday party. Yes it was double the fun double the excitement and double the bliss for Jess and Millie at the Barton Under Needwood Bowls Club. We delivered our new birthday party photo booth Burton upon Trent.

We set off very early from Birmingham to get there but unfortunately arrived later than expected due to the extended traffic on the A38. In addition, our postcode also took us to a back country road but with the help of the parents and staff at the venue we were redirected.

We had a nice space already decorated and signed ‘photo booth’ waiting for us at the venue. To allow for extra space a partial photobooth was setup. This takes less space and is not enclosed. It looks like a selfie pod. We also had a wonderful surprise waiting for us. Props! lots and lots of props to choose from. The Birthday children’s parents had organised all this for the event. We didn’t even need to bring out our own props. They had such a wide range to choose from. I can fairly say we’ve got some new prop ideas from them.

In conclusion, it was a successful event because everyone at the event contributed to making it a fabulous birthday party. In addition, I even learnt how to properly ‘dab’. Dabbing is a new selfie pose which is a variation of the dab dance made popular by footballers and other celebrities.