My book club chose Fifty Shades of Grey last month, and I was hosting, so I went in search of decorating & food ideas. Maybe I'm just not good at searching, but I only came up with one or two good solid posts about this. So here is what I did, thrown out into the internets so it can add help to someone else in that position. (snicker)
I forgot to take pictures! >.<
Decor
I didn't actually do a lot of decorating. I found this
awesome origami box that I thought would be wonderful for sending treats home, or putting a loose rubber band around to conceal a surprise at eat place setting. Dessert stuff maybe. Anyway, I made one from a sheet of dark grey 12x12 cardstock and it turned out awesome. The perfect size for a single person. I ran out of time to make the rest.
I got out my black serving bowls and white serving bowls. Originally I thought grey throughout would be appropriate, but once I finished the trilogy I realized that the color grey didn't play as much a part as I thought it would. And that Christian really liked white. I already had a set of black geometric plates so I set those out as well.
If you have a plain black tablecloth I think this would go wonderfully, perhaps with a pure white runner.
Grand plans for grey paper rosettes also fell by the wayside. This time because I didn't think I had a way to make the folds very even. But any decoration you can make with paper, just use grey paper and suddenly it's appropriate.
Food & Drink
Food is what I'm good at, so I thought I had a good showing here. Here's what I served:
- Scones. They're easy to make but most people view them as a little more upscale. Mine were chocolate chip. Vanilla would be even better for the theme, though.
- Salad. Why? Because Annie's makes Goddess dressing, which I also served. At a later date someone used the phrase "tossing salad" in reference to Fifty Shades. Though they don't do that in the books, I think it's a nice pun and would be fun to see if anyone notices the double entendre.
- Pink Champagne. The one they drink in the book (Bollinger) is expensive - $200/bottle - so I went with Korbel Sweet Rose. It was delicious. I served it in tea cups, because that was what Ana had it in the first time she tasted pink champagne.
Also present at the book club (it's a potluck):
- Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes. Because Christian took her cherry. I loved the reasoning behind this food!
- Chocolate Covered Strawberries. I'm not sure if this made an appearance in the book, but it's generally something I think of a guy feeding to his lady so it fit in my mind.
- Swedish cookies. They were vanilla with chocolate drizzles across the tops.
Whatever you do, please do not put zip ties on or through the food. They are not food grade plastic. You could use zip ties to attach names to wine glass stems, though.
Some other food ideas:
Music
I found the author's website, which lists
all the music present in the book. I started tracking down the individual songs and pricing them, thinking I would make a disc for each attendee. I still think this is a good idea, but I noticed at the bottom of the soundtrack list there was a link for the author's youtube page to listen to them. They're all there when you click the link!
I found out I didn't think they were at all appropriate for the situations they were used in, they made me like Christian less, and that is not the sort of music I listen to anytime. But, they were wonderful as background music for the meeting. So when people started arriving I clicked over, turned my speakers up (fortunately I have relatively nice speakers, but the computer is at the opposite end of the house from the dining room) and let it play through all 3 soundtracks while we talked.
Dress
I think the best way to pick an themed outfit for this would be to pick the character you identify most with and try to dress how you think she would. But I wonder if everyone identifies most with Ana just because she is the main character? Hmm...Could be something to bring up at the meeting. You could even suggest dressing a part in the event description and then have each person tell who they are (or everyone can guess) and then they can explain what part of the book(s) in particular influenced their dress.
Miscellaneous
If you have a Passion Party consultant in your midst you should definitely hit her up to do a shpeal at your meeting. You can have her show the different things used in the books and explain what they are, how to use them, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they already thought of this eventuality and prepared accordingly.
A good "door prize" is a crop. You can order them online, but you can also just go down to an equestrian shop and pick one up. They might know what you're up to, but probably not. And if they do, who really cares?
I can see so many ways to make a drinking game to go along with this book, but since everyone is probably driving home after the event, it's probably best to avoid that.
