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The Main Event
Texas parties have historically been my kryptonite, and by historically I mean two over the course of the last 15 years. One was a failure of imagination and the postal service that didn’t pick up outgoing mail for two weeks (this helps explain why we send out invitations at least a month in advance). The other, while not a “failure” per se, was definitely small and didn’t meet the grandiosity that a Texas party truly deserves. I hear ya, a normal person would cut their losses and call the Texas Party theme done and move on. I however, am not a “normal” person when it comes to the Great Republic. Rather, I have long prided myself on being that way too proud of Texas gal. As such, failing to throw a proper Texas party is a mark of shame. On top of that, our party often falls on March 2nd (Texas Independence Day for y’all that don’t know). When we realized that this year’s party would in fact fall on Texas Independence Day the theme was set, though not without a lot of trepidation and incredibly high personal expectations.
Invitations arriving the day of the party aside, the biggest failure of our first Texas party was the over reliance on giant painted Texas flags rescued from Texas History classroom and a giant map of Texas. As a small aside, I don’t recommend throwing a party that requires more than ordering pizza and opening cheap wine days after one member of the two member teams sits for the bar exam. With that said, this party had to be heavy on the decorations and they had to be more that could be found in even the Most Texian of Texian Texas History classrooms. We decided to stick with the Texas real Texans know as our decor starting point. If you’re thinking of the Alamo, San Jacinto and the prettiest and pinkest of State Capitals you’re wrong. Rather we went with Texas cultural classics including Whataburger, Buc-Ee’s, HEB and Gruene Hall as well as our local favorite Bandidos (an ode to our law school days, and our family SMU football tradition.)
We started the influencer vibe of the party by sending out “Influencer boxes” as the invitations. I’ll cover that in another post as well as the general menu/food set up and game. (Hopefully, it won’t take me years to get those done.) For now, lets “walk the party”.
We didn’t focus on the outside of the party too much. Though, we toyed with the idea of turning one of the giant Halloween skeletons into a Big Tex from the Texas State Fair. We flew a “Come and Take it Flag” and added a Texas flag doormat, so that our guests could be sure they were at the right place.
As a rule, we try to set the tone for the party with the entryway, but also want it to have a “you’re just getting started” feel. A few examples: Pandemonium at the Disco’s entry mimicked the entry into the real studio 54, Death and Vodka had the solemnity appropriate for a funeral, and Embassy Intrigue was a hotel lobby (yeah, yeah Alex, I still need to write that one up.) For this party, we recreated a Texas Travel Center. While we visited several actual Texas travel centers as part of our research (and invitation building), this one was a little more “what one might expect” then actual travel center. Alex built and hung magazine racks to the hall wall that included Texas Travel Guides and brochures to Texas’ best tourist destinations. On the other side of the hall we had the Texas Travel Information Center logo and the requisite bluebonnet painting. The welcome desk contained Texas maps and Don’t Mess with Texas bags (the official bag of the Texas Travel Center). The ceiling was adorned with the Six Flags of Texas. After all you can’t have a Texas party without them, but we managed to get them out of the way quickly.
As usual, a quick picture stop in front of the Party’s picture backdrop. Shan does an amazing job with acrylic paints and a king sized sheet.
We transformed the dining room into Gruene Hall (the longest continuously running dance hall in Texas). We recreated the outside of the building using faux white wood paneling wallpaper and cut vinyl to match the Gruene Hall sign. We incorporated the inside of the building by focusing on the stage area. We left our actual dining room curtains up (I know if we were really committed, we would have purchased purple fringed curtains to match the real one.) We painted a king size sheet to match the Brazos River Scene that serves as the stage backdrop. It is pretty amazing what one can accomplish with a bedsheet and acrylic paint! We finished off the look by zigzagging Edison lights across the ceiling. Last but not least, we brought back the dance floor from Pandemonium at the Disco.
Turning back into what can sometimes seem like the never ending entryway or what Justice (the newest Cesarz family member) considers the “you might still be an intruder zone”, was a wooden map of Texas with each region being made out of a different piece of wood. This ended up looking like more of a work of art than I originally imagined. We also thought we might paint it, but once we put it all together we really liked the more natural look. This also allowed us to highlight pieces that were reclaimed from other parties including part of the coffin from Death and Vodka, the tongue of the blue whale from Route 66, and the Berlin Wall from Embassy Intrigue. Prior to the party we asked our guests to send us pictures from their Texas Adventures. We surrounded the map with the pictures. We originally intended to place each picture in the general region of Texas they were taken in, but that fell apart quickly. We’ve taken the pictures down, but 8 months later the map still remains. We have a plan to seal the wood and hang it in the backyard, but hey it’s covering the paint bleed through that we got on the wall painting Gruene Hall, and what’s the hurry.
Up until this point, I’d say we were reserved, subtle even as far as way too Proud of Texas People go. Beyond the entryway, was every True Texans Dream… Whataburger, Buc-Ee’s, HEB, and a wall of Bluebonnets. Up first though was Bandito’s. For those of you that don’t obsessively follow Lacey and Alex go to SMU game adventures, Bandito’s is a Tex Mex restaurant located in Snider Plaza next to SMU. The building space was two other Tex Mex restaurants before it became Bandito’s while we were in Law School, and we spent many hours eating lots of queso there. Since it was our party we decided it should have a place among the great Texas institutions. We hung red brick wall paper to mimic the brick wall on the patio seating and recreated the giant Willie Nelson art piece that hangs behind the largest booth in the narrow restaurant. To make sure everyone knew where they were, we recreated the Bandito’s signage and added an SMU pennant for a finishing touch.
The main focus of the living room was Whataburger. We spent a good deal of time looking at Whataburger roof lines and styles throughout the years, and ultimately decided to go with the classic A frame, but it definitely had additional elements mixed in to make it work. Alex made the main A out of two by fours, and we used masonite with orange and white stripes for stability and the classic Whataburger look. We went with the older style diamond shaped Whataburger sign and actually managed to copy the font with orange vinyl. We added a string of orange LED lights that we had left over from Route 66 for a bit of that late night fast food glow.
Whataburger extended into the living room with the standing tables we’ve been using since Death and Vodka (these are definitely a staple and an entertaining game changer). We used white tablecloths with an orange and white checker topper on each table, and finished them off with Whataburger number tents. For the record, we did not steal them! We bought them from the Whataburger online store. Unfortunately they said “just married”, so we covered that up with white vinyl and added orange numbers.
Whether you’re a Native Texan or got here as fast as you could sort, you’re not an official Texan until you’ve had your picture or taken pictures of your kiddos in the bluebonnets. We decided to honor this tradition by creating a “bluebonnet wall”. While it’s not illegal to pick the bluebonnets in Texas, it’s in terrible form. In fact, if Emily Post was a Texan she’d have a thing or two to say about. Even if we were obsessed with getting it right enough to pick a field’s worth of bluebonnets, they aren’t in bloom until at least mid-March, so we were out of luck. Alex built a wooden frame that was large enough to cover the living room window and covered it in chicken wire. Caroline did the honors of dying and placing the well over 2000 coffee filters that created the bluebonnets (if you’ve been here a while you know we love a good coffee filtered covered chicken wire piece of decor.) Once the coffee filters were in place, we painted the tips white to create the “bonnets”. We zigzagged fishing line across the “field” and showed-off our guests bluebonnet pictures. A little note, we did use this as a place to move the couch, since it normally sits in the middle of the living room. We can say that was to maintain seating, but we all know that’s not really true. We just got a new whiter couch since the Pandemonium at the Disco party, and even have my limits as to furniture I will move into the backyard.
Next up, Buc-Ee’s! Everyone’s favorite gas, potty, snack stop! When I think of Buc-Ee’s, I think of the cute beaver in his red and yellow outfit. As a result, I really remember Buc-Ee’s has having a lot more color than it does. In reality it’s pretty beige with pops of color on the signage and snacks. Beige may work for an actual giant convenience store even if it borders on being an actual department store, but it wasn’t going to pop at this party. We started by painting masonite red and yellow stripes (since we were decorating during the NFL playoffs this really made us seem like giant Chiefs fans). Since this is where we wanted to create the look of wall upon wall of hanging snacks, but had to reign it in somewhere, we staggered wooden “frames” across the masonite. Then we added hooks with actual snacks from Buc-Ee’s on each hook. We created Buc-Ee’s signage and had the actual Buc-Ee’s beaver picture printed to create a final touch of authenticity. A quick note, we even begged our guests to enjoy the snacks and even take them home with them.
Last but definitely not least, we rounded out the downstairs with everybody’s favorite grocery store HEB. I want to point out that HEBs look different depending on their size, location, and newness. We based our HEB on our local HEB. We went as far as being the crazy touristy people taking pictures in the grocery store. It’s HEB, so maybe it’s cool, but it still felt a little weird. We started by creating the outside HEB sign. One thing I was super focused on this party, was making sure we had depth and that the decorations didn’t feel flat (I still have nightmares about Prom). So, rather than just paint HEB in white on the red sign or even create it out of vinyl, Alex actually cut the letters from another bit of wood and glued them on. We then hung the sign on heavy hooks with heavy wire over our kitchen island (at our 80’s party a gazillion years ago we had a bunch of cassette tapes we had taped up fall from the ceiling at the last minute… falling decorations is a very real phobia). We added signs for the bakery and Dairy over the oven and fridge respectively. To finish off the large signage, we decided to copy some of the “chalkboard” style signs that were all over the store. And here is where friends with artistic talent are incredible! We bought chalkboard vinyl and enlisted our friend Katherine to actually paint the signage based on the pictures she took. Then we hung her art on the cabinet doors. We finished the decor off with small signage and relied a lot on the food and packaging to finish off the look.
I said last, but not quite… Caroline would be very upset if I failed to mention Dr. Pepper. I’m proud of this one, not for its greatness but for our quick need to pivot. Once we rearranged the furniture and added the standing tables, we had an issue with a lack of balance and place to put the chairs that actually go in the room. The bedrooms were already filled with rugs, dining room chairs and party dish boxes so stashing one of them somewhere was out. We pulled the chair into a small nook, added the lunchbox Caroline got from our tour of the Dr Pepper Museum and created the Dr Pepper clock out of a table top we weren’t using. I guess it could be a party game in the future to figure out which table has the Dr Pepper clock.
To give a little Texas flair to our guests as they headed upstairs, we hung Texas Homecoming mums that belonged to Shan and Caroline and a few of our friends’ daughters. This set the tone nicely, for the upstairs “Boulevard.” You see, at SMU, we don’t “tailgate,” before football games, we “Boulevard.” The school shuts down Bishop Boulevard, the main road onto the campus, and it’s a seemingly endless party from the Mockingbird lane all the way to Dallas hall. We asked our friends to compete in a tailgate contest to see who could create the best “Tailgate” by decorating a card table. Then we had a vote and of course the Aggies won. What a rip-off.
Stay posted for food and trivia questions that are long with even longer answers!
XOXO
Lacey