Mother/Daughter Tea...sorry really long....

15 years ago

Alrighty then...here I am again!

My little church has decided that they would love to have a M/D tea on the Saturday before Mother's day.

I guess you know who got railroaded....ummmmmm I mean volunteered....ummmmmm I mean nominated to get things together..

Yep, you are right, so here I am!!

My ideas so far:

White table cloths with square overlays of prints/colors to match the dishes on THAT table.

Between the church, DD, DSIL and myself, we have enough sets of dishes to have different dishes on each table.

I think I will bow to convenience and use the big, soft white paper napkins...or maybe some that coordinate with the dishes?????

Teapot centerpieces (DD collects them so we have lots :^) with a dowel in the center, sheer ribbons wound maypole style around the dowel, colored marbles on top of styrofoam to hold the dowel in the pot, and a flower glued to the top of the dowel.

I ordered tea bags from Scripture tea, so we will have an assortment of flavors on each table along with sugar, sweet and lo and cream.

I have a TON of silver serving pieces and silver tableware.

We will have cookies, cupcakes, tea sandwiches......????

How do we get the hot water to each table and have it still hot?????, or should I just have the tea bags and hot water at the food table????

More ideas????

Thank you all in advance for your good ideas. I always know who will bail me out of the crazy things that I get into!!

J

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Comments (11)

luvstocraft
15 years ago
Jaybird, they just know who they can count on--that's why you were chosen! ;o)

Your ideas sound great! As for the hot water, maybe you could just use those big metal coffee urns for the hot water and let the guests pick up their cup and bring it over to the table where they can select a tea bag, cream, sugar, etc. Much easier than trying to run around pouring hot water for everyone. All the morning meetings I used to attend were set up that way.

You might consider serving some cut up fruit along with your cookies and cupcakes. Or if you are doing tea sandwiches, maybe a green salad would be appropriate. I'll let the "food experts" advise you on that part.

This sounds so exciting, and I'm sure all the ladies will have a great time. (Hope you will be able to share pics with us.)

Luvs
plainjane425
15 years ago
jaybird..I agree with Luvs..they picked you cause they know you won't disappoint..and they're probably excited thinking about what you'll do. I also agree that a Large Coffee Urn for the hot water would be best. We always set this method up, at my school, and it worked very smoothly.
Fruit, along with your cookies and cupcakes sounds good, as Luvs suggested....or, even a Rainbow Sherbet would be refreshing.
Another thing we did at our school, for a Mother's Tea, was encourage each lady to wear a Wide Brimed Hat...It was a big hit, and it set such an elegant tone to the tea. The mothers really enjoyed the idea as well as each others' hats. This also became an annual event that mothers looked forward to each Spring.
Enjoy your planning..sounds like such fun.
jane
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oreos_mom
15 years ago
Luvs and Slinky have some good ideas :)
If you do decide to use a large coffee urn,make sure to clean it really well by running water and baking soda through it several times. Otherwise,your tea will taste like stale coffee.. lol ! It's also a little hard to get the water in the urns at the boiling point you need for tea, so if you have or know of someone who has the glass lined airpots,you can boil your water ahead and put it in them. And there are some really nice tea party menus on the web if you stumped and can't think of what to serve. Just remember that sandwich spreads,such as chicken salad always taste better if they're made the day before. And scones and tea parties go hand in hand. Wearing hats is a lovely idea. Teas are kind of like the Derby.. you gotta have a hat..lol.

Susan
dining_delight
15 years ago
Jay, how great of you to "volunteer" for this and what a great idea! (I'm sure a lot of us get asked to do things when it comes to tables/decor as we start to get a "reputation" for it!)

Your Mother/Daughter Tea set up reminds me so much of the Victorian Tea we did for quite a few years at our church. We had lots of different tables each decorated by different ladies using what they had so that each table was very unique - even the tablecloths were their own so it was not "matchy" at all.

The way we did the tea was to keep big pots (soup stock type) full of water boiling on the stove. We made the tea in the kitchen in urns so that it steeped nicely and then poured it into individual teapots that were taken to and left on the tables. Do you have enough teapots for that? The part that is nice about that too is that the guests can refill their cups (which are usually small!)as often as they need to right at the table. We even had someone who loved to sew make us a bunch of different tea cozies to keep the pot warm on the table (that way the teapot didn't have to match the china as it was covered most of the time)

Hope you have fun planning it and don't get too stressed out!

DD
jaybird
Original Author
15 years ago
Ahhhhh you all are getting me all in a tizzy! Thanks for so many great ideas.
We ordered tea bags from Scripture Tea (SUPER nice lady on the phone :^), so I'm thinking that I may have to set up a "tea station" separate from the food, so we don't have such a traffic jam. Susan, great hint about special cleaning of the urns!!
I so appreciate your time to share hints and ideas...somehow sharing with you has lessened the road block that I had hit!!
Hugs to you all!
kathleen_li
15 years ago
All the ideas sound wonderful..and how nice you were drafted to run the tea!
Another option may be the insulated caraffes filled with hot water...I have a white one, and some silver, and some others..I am sure members of the church will have them...you can dress them up..or use the tea cozy on them. They keep the water hot for hours..

I agree with Luvs...some fruit for those who may not eat goodies...

Sounds like a great party...I have 100 white cloth napkins..lots of fun getting the lipstick off and laundering!!
lynninnewmexico
15 years ago
It sounds like it's shaping up to be a lovey tea party! And such great ideas, too. You make me want to have one, too. Nothing more to add at the moment, but please remember to take your camera so that we can see the end results from all your hard work and creativity, OK?
Lynn
P.S. When DD was four, I had a Teddy Bear Birthday tea party for her and her friends (and their moms). I bought big (adult size, but nice) straw hats for each of the girls and lots of silk flowers, ribbons and low temp glue guns to decorate them with. The little girls in their Spring frocks were so adorable, but rapidly lost interest in the decorating process. On the other hand, their moms (my girlfriends) had a ball decorating the hats! And, after a couple glasses of chilled white wine, some of those hats turned out to be pretty amazing! The pictures of the girls wearing their hats at their first official tea party are priceless . . . and so are the ones of the moms hard at "work"!!
Sorry, I don't mean to hijack your thread, but the hats at a tea party suggestion got me remembering!
Lynn
printersdevil
15 years ago
My church does a fall-Christmas tea that I love. I so wish someone would hold a Spring one. I love hats and the whole idea of a tea party.

When I taught senior English, we always read Bernard Shaw's PYGMALION (MY FAIR LADY) in the spring. For a project I always had the students make a hat worthy of the garden party and the results were wonderful. Some did the minimal, but most found hats at Goodwill, thrift stores or from their grandmothers and decorated them. Some started with the straw hats and went from there. The senior guys were always amazing! I should have done tea, but never thought about it at the time.
plainjane425
15 years ago
It's amazing how the mention of planning a Tea Party and Wearing a Hat..conjures up so many wonderful thoughts!!
Love It...
jane
sharon_fl
15 years ago
A nice way to present fresh fruit for a special affair is to cut watermelon, cantaloupe & honeydew in bite size chunks, seedless grapes & strawberries (left whole). Buy the packages of wooden skewers at the grocery store & thread the fruits on skewers, leaving about an inch on each end. I have used cantaloupes & honeydews as the base to hold the skewers by simply removing most of the fruit, cutting a thin slice off the bottom of each half so it sits evenly on a doily & spear the fruit in the melon. You could place a melon bowl of spears on each table for added color. I always make sure the strawberry is the first fruit at the top of the spear.
jaybird
Original Author
15 years ago
Y'all are GREAT!! I will have to make sure that the invite says something about hats! That would be so fun! I like the fruit skewer idea too. I have fruit trays on my list (thanks Luvs), so I may just use a few skewers standing up, to decorate the centers of the trays.

Mother/Daughter Tea...sorry really long....

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