Ella's Tea Party

We love England. Kyle and I met and fell in love while attending a semester abroad in London, and then returned for graduate school a few years later at Oxford. We found out we were pregnant and spent my first trimester in England, so all three of us have lived there... sort of. We thought it would be fitting to have a tea party to celebrate Ella's first birthday.

We hosted the event at our little apartment. We had the food set on our table and all the the desserts spread on the counter and it worked well considering our limited space. We put away all our pictures in the living room and hung up our favorite pictures of London in their places.

In keeping with the British theme, everything was blue and red. The paper tablecloth was from Ikea (and perfect since we had kids running around... no risk of pulling down the fabulous pewter on their heads), we picked up 2 dozen roses from Costco to dress up the tables, spread red votives everywhere, and teapots, double decker buses, and phone booths, etc. We found Ritter Sport, Cadbury chocolate, mint meltaways, chocolate digestive biscuits (amazing British cookies) at local specialty stores, and we had blue and white take-away boxes filled with homemade caramels as favors for our guests.

I've never had so much fun putting together a table in my life. My Mom brought down some of her cake stands to add to my pewter collection (all from Old Town Imports) and I love how the pewter dressed up the table.

The food was delicious and I especially loved the ribbon sandwiches and the lemon tarts. My sister Erin designed the oh-so-fabulous invitations (we took off our last name and address to post here). I found the free graphic of the Tower Bridge she used through this fabulous blog...

Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us! Happy Birthday Ella...