15723

Las Vegas Party -25yr- Roulette & Bingo

May 2007

Janet in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Honorable Mention

When my best friend turned 25, I knew I had to plan an over-indulgent birthday.  We decided on a Viva Las Vegas theme, and everything else fell into place. 

We e-invited the guests, with a bright red background and fun lettering in black font, telling them the date, time, location, and theme.  I spent about a month printing pictures off of my computer of anything having to do with Las Vegas, pictures of hotels, Elvis, and especially gambling.  We hung these pictures up all over my friends apartment, covering every wall. 

We decided to host a martini bar for the guests, in true Rat Pack fashion.  I spent two days gluing sequins to poster board to create a martini menu" which listed the names and ingredients of over a dozen martinis.  The sequins spelled out the titles of the drinks and they shimmered like the neon lights in Vegas.  We also hung those tiny white christmas lights all around the ceiling and set them to blinking for a more Vegas-y effect.  I found plastic martini glasses at a party supply store and supplied them for all of the guests.  We even found a couple dozen martini glasses whose stems lit up with florescent lights. 

I bought a roulette wheel at a local novelty store and we set up tables for blackjack and Texas Hold-Em as well.  I bought a large (two foot long) novelty playing card and all of the guests signed the big card as a guest book that my friend got to keep after the party. 

For favours every guest got to take home a deck of cards with a label that read "Holly's Quarter Century Birthday--Viva Las Vegas! February 2007".  We set up the food in a buffet style with a sign that read "$1.99 All You Can Eat Buffet!" and loaded the table with all of my friends favourite foods.  I made the cake myself a double layer chocolate fudge cake that was iced green with five white icing playing cards fanned out like a poker hand.  I also found some foil wrapped chocolates that looked like poker chips so I stacked these in the corners of the poker table cake. 

All of the guests were told to come dressed in "Vegas theme" and they all got really into it.  Some people dressed like high class escorts while others came as brides and grooms mobsters tacky tourists wearing black socks and sandals and even a member of CSI with latex gloves and a fake gun cop badge and handcuffs.  I even printed off fake money for all of the guests to bet with.  It was about the same size as a bill on green paper with a photo of my friend in the centre. 

Everyone started with the same amount (about $10 000) and if they ran out and wanted to get more then they had to come to the "bank" and answer a trivia question right about the birthday girl.  After a few hours we had a costume contest where we gave away shot glasses with playing cards printed on them as prizes for the best dressed and a BINGO game.  I found a site on the internet where you can print off your own novelty BINGO cards so I changed the name to VEGAS and printed off a hundred or so cards so that we could play a few games. 

The day of the party I sent my friend on a city wide scavenger hunt that lasted for five hours long enough for me to decorate her house for the party.  I layed clues all around the city at different friends houses in our church in a book at the library that was put on hold at her work.  Each clue would lead her to the next. 

She had a fabulous time and it really didn’t take that much work to plan out.  Overall the night was a huge success and everyone had a fantastic time and they're still talking about it! Now everyone wants me to help them plan their next party!!"

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