Vintage Palm Springs Favorite Things Party
Are you ready to transport your guests to a retro Palm Springs party right in your own backyard, no matter where your zip code is? That is exactly the vision my girlfriends and I had when we teamed up for this Rosé All Day Favorite Things Party. Soft rose and dusty pinks combined with succulents and palm leaves, plus a showstopping gallery wall set the tone to transport our guests to the palm dessert, in our Seattle backyard. I can't wait to share with you how you can create your own Palm Springs themed party for a women's birthday, bachelorette party or your own favorite things party!
Palm Springs Inspired Party Invitation & Paper Goods
The printed invites and paper goods that I designed for this party immediately let guests know the theme with a retro Palm Springs hotel and Rosé All Day wording. The postcard inspired invitation matched the vision for the gallery wall and helped guest feel like they were invited to travel to the desert oasis. We had so much fun transporting guests to the East Coast for a coastal Hamptons themed Favorite Things party, we wanted to come back to the West Coast for P.S.
The "Welcome to Palm Springs" Rosé Drink Bar
For a Rosé All Day themed party, a Rosé based cocktail is a must. We chose to serve a Rojito and a Rosenade. I always also make sure to have a mocktail option at a party so guests that prefer that still have a fancy alternative. Infused waters are one of my favorite options because they look and taste beautiful. We made a mint-lime infused water to compliment the signature cocktails.
Drink Bar Tip: Anytime you serve a signature cocktail or mocktail, include a themed drink menu with the ingredients listed. It saves you from answering "what's in this pitcher?" all night long.
To create the Palm Springs aesthetic for the drink bar, we used simple gold frames from the dollar store (score!) and I designed a drink menu image to be placed near both of the drink pitchers with a succulent and cactus design that was carried throughout the party, a great way to tie together a cohesive theme.
If you've ever read my top 5 dessert table tips blog post, you know one of my tips is to ditch the folding table when you can to instantly elevate any dessert table, drink station or dinner party. If you're a parent, you may recognize our bar cart was actually my kids outgrown diaper changing station!
Another quick tip to dress up a premade cocktail, is to include a variety of garnish options. We complimented the Rojito and Rosenade with fresh mint, peaches and raspberries.
The last way I think is so fun to elevate a bar cart for a party is a themed stir stick and drink tag. We DIY'd these tassel stir sticks by simply gluing some pink fringe tissue paper to gold straws and the palm leaf drink tags were made with my cricut.
Want to replicate your own Palm Springs inspired bar cart? I'm gifting you all the printable for free! Just enter your email address below to have them emailed on over 👇
Vintage Palm Springs Decor and Succulent Accents
We sprinkled vintage Palm Springs photos throughout the party, in modern gold frames, which really complimented the stunning gallery wall and the succulents in simple clay pots which we painted pink ombre were another easy way to bring the Palm Springs vibe into our party, giving everything a cohesive, chic feel.
Palm Springs Dessert Table
As far as I'm concerned, you don't even need to serve food at parties. Cocktails and cake are just fine by me. This delicious dessert table tasted as good as it looked. The succulent cupcakes were made by a local baker, and mom as well at Sugar and Paper Events and Aleks made the cake and gave me the honor of styling it with succulents from her garden.
You don't need to serve dozens of desserts to make a show stopping dessert table. We created central focal point with the gorgeous cake, paired it with one themed dessert (our succulent cupcakes), and added coconut covered donuts from the grocery store to set up this dessert bar cart.
Fun fact, I used to want to be a florist when I grew up, but now I think I want to be a cake decorator in my next life.
We did also ask our friends to help with bringing food and ended up with a beautiful and delicious spread. Remember, you don't have to do it all! It's okay to ask friends for help to outsource some of the party details like food or drinks!
Personal Touches for the Perfect Party Favor for Adults
I wanted to do something special for my girlfriends, that was a favorite thing money couldn't buy and came up with these love notes. In between eating and drinking, guests were asked to write a favorite thing about all the moms in our tribe, so each mom ended up with print they could take home and frame, filled with all the great things about them. Any time I host a party, I always like to have something special and meaningful guests or the hosts can take home, like bridal shower wishes for the Mr. & Mrs. or advice for the mom & dad to be.
How to Host a Favorite Things Party
Although I am just fine going to a party to eat cake and sip on cocktails, a favorite things party is an absolute blast, and a great reason to throw a party when you don't actually have a reason to throw one. When you make paper goods and your bestie is a party planner, you will think of any reason to celebrate. That is our M.O.
What is a favorite things party?
1. Instruct guests to bring 3 of their favorite items under $30, unwrapped
2. Split gift picking into 3 different rounds of games, activities or round robin style to pick gifts
3. Everyone goes home with 3 new favorite things, recommended by their friends!
For this party, we had three different rounds to determine the order of who picked their gifts first. Round 1 was a bottle pull, which we taped these custom number designs to the bottom of the rose bottles. A fun way that combined decor and function. Round 1 was also my favorite because I drew number 1! My first pick was the Yeti tumbler with Lululemon hair ties.
For the second round, we put our palm leaf drink tags in a bag, and pulled out names in order to pick gifts, and the 3rd round we went in reverse order from the bottle pull, starting at #9.
After hours of endless fun, you didn't think we'd leave without a million pictures in front of the gallery wall, did you? The best photo backdrop I've ever seen! And our group is getting a lot better at perfecting the fake laugh, don't you think?!
On the way out, we made sure everyone took their rosé flavored gummy bears home as a sweet treat, tied with a custom tag I designed!
Whether you're planning a Palm Springs inspired dinner party, birthday, bridal shower or Favorite Things party, you don't need an address in Palm Springs to bring the Palm Dessert to your backyard. Start with a classic color palette of dusty rose pink and cactus green, add succulents and palm leaves, then layer in vintage postcard style photos of Palm Springs and get ready to celebrate.
Vendors:
Paper Goods: Palm to Pine Design
Party Plan: Allison Carter Celebrates
Cupcakes: Sugar and Paper Events
Photos: Aleks Lopez
