At church, we all have different jobs that help everything function. Mine just so happens to be Activities President. It's exactly what it sounds like, I plan activities with my committee that will help create a fellowship for all the ladies in the ward. We have quarterly, "big" activities that require a lot of planning and prep. For our activity this month we were celebrating the Relief Society's birthday. Instead of doing a standard party, I thought it would be fun to do a "Very Merry Un-Birthday" tea party like in Alice and Wonderland. My committee agreed and we set to work planning. I pulled ideas from the cartoon version, as well as the Tim Burton cut of Alice and Wonderland. For the invitation, I wanted something eclectic and mismatched to reflect the feel of our party. I found a free vector cut out of some tea cups and spent some time in photoshop making the background and browsing my font catalog. In the end, I came up with this;

"Please don't be late for a very important date. Follow the White Rabbit to Wonderland for the Relief Society's Very Merry Un-Birthday. "Tea" will be served, Tuesday, March 12th at 7 pm at the Victor's Pond Building. Hope to see you there!"

     With the invite all designed and sent to print, I got to work on the most time intensive part; finding tea cups. I wanted mismatched tea cups and saucers to reflect my eclectic vision. I could have just as easily asked people to borrow their sets, but I wanted every lady who came to be able to take their cup and saucer home with them! I am pretty sure I went to every DI (local thrift store) in the Salt Lake Valley looking for tea cups and saucers. In the end, after many days of looking, I ended up with 46! (We had 37 people attend - not too shabby for our area!) For the rest of the decor, I asked my committee to all come with their table cloths, cake stands, tea pots, water jugs and clocks. We lined up banquet tables in a straight line in the gym and stuck smaller, shorter, classroom tables in between them to give off different heights. We also raided all the halls and classrooms for different styles of chairs. I ended up stringing my bunting that I made from basketball hoop to basketball hoop and hanging lanterns that I got from the Dollar Tree on it. Each chair had a helium filled balloon tied to it. I also used my leftover poppies from Brit's Baby shower to help add to the table scene. Because I wanted the ladies to mingle and talk with people they wouldn't normally do so with, every 15 minutes I'd call out something for them all to switch places. The first being; switch places with a different colored balloon than yours. I also did others like; different colored hair, sit by someone you don't see often, etc. For food, we had people sign up to bring different finger sized desserts, veggies, fruit and mini sandwiches. We also had them use their saucer as a plate so we didn't have to worry about paper products. All in all the party was a success and everyone left with their tea cups and fun, conversation filled, night. I had to scramble to take some pictures before our guests started arriving, but I loved this activity so much!