Pride and Prejudice Birthday Party

"What a fine thing for our girls!" --Mrs. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice



My friend Gena and I threw our friend Lady Laurissa a Pride and Prejudice Birthday Party at my house. She is a huge fan of Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens. (We have great conversations in the mornings while we walk!) It was so much fun to plan. What an elegant night! I decided to make a dress for the occasion, and it made it even more fun for me. Wearing it was transformational (is that a word? I like it!) Previous to putting it on, the house was in mad chaos, and I was not being my best self. Seth was not impressed with the haggard woman he had come home to. Ten minutes later, I came down fully dressed with hair curled and up, smiling sweetly, good tempered and mild mannered. He said, "Oh, I knew it was the curlers making you that way."

Beforehand we made elegant bookmark invitations to invite people to come. I made my house look as period accurate as possible by researching on the Internet and through watching Pride and Prejudice (sigh, Collin Firth...) I hid lamps, Cd's, stereos, and covered things with elegant tablecloths (like our shoe covey, and oil monitor) I tried to make everything look as simple and bare as possible, while adding doilies and frills to corners, and vases of fresh flowers. We also had candles lit in all the rooms.
At the party everyone came in and drank herbal tea and coco, while sitting on the couches. We also had chocolates on a stand on the coffee table. We then progressed to dinner which consisted of cucumber and butter crust less sandwiches on white bread (which was the elegant sandwich of the time according to my source--Wikepedia.) We also had quiche, fresh fruit, lemonade, french bread and jam, among other delectable goodies.

We played a couple games. The first was a quiz on Pride and Prejudice. The winner got a box of chocolates. The loser got one of my spare copies of the book Pride and Prejudice. We also played "Place the Hat on Darcy" (similar to Pin the Tail on the Donkey.) The winner of that got one of my spare copies of Sense and Sensibility.

I think this will become a yearly tradition. Next time I am definitely hiring a couple maids and a photographer! It was hard to be elegant, in servitude, the leader of the games, and take pictures of everything going on! But sooooo much fun!! Here are some more pictures of my house I thought I'd post (especially since it will never look this clean again!)