A Haunted Dinner Party

This year we moved the BooBash inside and hosted a Haunted Dinner party. Everyone was to come as something "dead" or spooky looking.  The tables were draped in black tablecoths and creepy cloths, skulls, bones, candles, spider webs etc.  Everyone was immediately seated by the evil "Mistress of Darkness" who called them names like "maggots" and "zombie scum".   There were candles everywhere but it was still pretty dark and there were scary sounds like screaming, growling, and bells tolling!

The menu

 

The picture is blurry but these are the menu selections. Things like Italian Horror and Grinch Fingers and Eye Pokers. The guests made their selections and recorded them on their dinner sheet:



In the kitchen each item was numbered so I needed to serve each plate according to what they had selected. I had two friends help me serve because with sixteen seated guests one person can not manage it! Imagine the guests surprise when they selected poorly! Some ended up with a napkin, two forks, two olives and a glass of water for their first course. After each course the table was cleared. BUT the little devils kept trying to hide their plasticware for the next course. If the Mistress of Darkness caught them she took away their chair and they had to stand for a bit!

I kept the portions really small for the served part of the meal but after course five the guests could help themselves to any and all food available and even get an extra fork!

This was a blast!  I did learn some things from it and I will share the tips with you here in case you want to try this party!

Tips:

• Make sure the food is in order 1-26 in your kitchen. I didn't think about this because some of the items were in crock pots etc. Even if you have to renumber the selections on the sheet for your guests I would set it up so you can just walk in a circle with items number 1-26.
• The original sheet had 25 items, I added Vampire Treat (red wine, Bloody Mary, or red grape juice) The menu also included water and tea. If doing it again, I would set up the table with a water glass and a wine glass (an additonal glass if you desire) and I would start everyone out with a small glass of water and one of the Vampire Treat choices. Then they would not get another drink until it came up on their choices sheet. Then I would just pour it into the glass on the table. A pitcher of tea, water, bloody marys and a wine bottle could be carried around to do this!
• Another option to consider would be making this a THREE course meal rather than five. You could still have all the food items but divide into three courses instead of five. The only caution about doing that is more people would end up with their plastic ware...so maybe cut down on how many forks etc are listed in the selection choices. Its fun to see people try to eat without their forks! lol. It did take a lot of back and forth trips to serve 16 people FIVE courses but if you have the energy it will work!!

This was one of my more successful parties but its not one you can repeat very often or with the same people because they will know what is coming. My brain is already swirling with ideas for next year.....maybe a murder mystery dinner party...hmmmmm.