Every month we will be featuring one of our fellow High Tea Lovers as our HTL (High Tea Lover) of the Month!  Every featured HTL receives a beautiful box of cup cakes as a thank-you for sharing their tips and talent with us all!

Our newest High Tea Lover of the Month is Amanda Bedggood, who recently hosted a Kitchen Tea for her Sister, Tanya.  Amanda has been kind enough to share some of her favourite pics from the day and answered my probing questions on how she managed to create such a memorable event!…

 

 What was it that inspired you to host a Vintage-Style Kitchen Tea for your Sister?

My sister loves all things old-fashioned, vintage and antique. My Mum had recently been to a high tea and mentioned it to Tanya.  We all thought it would be lovely for her kitchen tea.  One of Tanya’s friends had mentioned the Antiquitea website and hiring options and, after viewing the website and seeing your gorgeous tea sets and various packages, we all fell in love with it!  Right away we decided that’s exactly what we wanted to create a perfect afternoon high tea.  All the ladies were blown away by the gorgeous individual trios, tiered cake stands, sugar bowls, teapots and silver cutlery on their arrival.

All set up and ready to go!

 

What were the favourite little touches that you added to the event?

I loved the decorations, particularly the flowers and lace curtains tied with ribbons.  We also personalised some hand-made gift bags for the ladies, which were a lovely treat and a surprise for the bride-to-be.  As it was such a hot day, we had pretty pink vintage-style buckets filled with ice and bottles of water that were used a lot!

      

Lace curtain and entrance to the horseshoe garden where the event was held (owned by a generous friend)

 

Did you play any tea party games.. if so what were your favourites!?

We had many fun games throughout the afternoon and we had made lovely game cards for all the ladies to score their points on.  We started off with the very popular ‘peg-stealing game’.. where guests were not allowed to say a few special words (Tanya, Warren, Wedding and Dress)!  If one of these words was spoken, another guest could steal your peg.  This really helped the guests to mingle.

The ‘Biggest Bag Award’ was a prize given to the guest with the heaviest handbag (and yes, her bag was actually heavier than the brides.. who loves her bags and constantly carries all that she thinks she might need around in it)!  Still on the bag theme, we then played ‘Whats in the Bag?’ where guests received points for having Tanya’s ‘essential’ items in their bag. 

A fun game after the food was ‘Double Identities’ where bags of dry food ingredients (such as flour, salt, sugar, spices, etc) were passed around and the ladies had to identify them.  A key to this was they could look, smell and touch, but not taste.

Finally, we played a great game which allowed the ladies to find out a little more about the bride and groom… ‘How well do you know the Happy Couple?’.  A really fun quiz asking intimate and funny questions about Tanya and Warren.. the answers caused many laughs.

 

Each person’s place card had the meaning of their name printed under their name..

 

What was the most popular item on your high tea menu?

The fruit skewers and strawberry baby cupcakes that we made ourselves.

 

Tanya (in yellow!) and friends enjoying her kitchen tea

Everyone seemed to really go the extra mile to ‘look the part’ on the day, how did this come about?

Tanya is always dressed beautifully and enjoys her clothes and accessories.  So on the invitation we asked the guests to impress her by dressing up a little and wearing a hair piece or fascinator.  Every single lady did just that!  They all looked so beautiful and Tanya was so impressed with the gorgeous colours.  It was really sweet as Tanya, and us three bridesmaids all accidentally colour-co-ordinated our outfits.. which was really special!

 

Do you have any advice for others who may be planning a similar event?

Definitely use Antiquitea as the little touches from Fiona really made the day… and always plan ahead!  The garden was the perfect setting for our event.. the flowers, birds and butterflies made it even more amazing on the day.  Guests stayed for 4 hours and didn’t want to leave!  Thank you so much Fiona for creating a perfect day for Tanya.  We appreciate your efforts so much.

 

Amanda, Cheryl (the proud Mum) and Tanya (Bride-to-Be)

Thank you so much Amanda for sharing your special day and your top tips with us.