New Year's Eve Receptions

The main theme behind a new year or new year's eve party is fun! It's time to celebrate a new year and a new beginning. It's entirely appropriate to celebrate a new marriage as well. Whether you choose to hold your reception as the old year becomes the new (at the stroke of midnight) or choose instead to celebrate during the day, there are many ways that you can add a festive air to the proceedings. One of the easiest is to buy the traditional new year trimmings. I have no experience with the companies below, but they will clearly illustrate the trimmings that I am talking about...such as top hats, tiaras, noisemakers, party horns and confetti.

New Year's Eve Party Packs
Party Pinto's page takes a LONG time to load, but it's worth it as the pics are clear and the kits varied.

New Year's Kits
Party Supermarket offers various kits in bulk.

New Year's Merchandise
A few bulk kit offerings from Der Ver Ber Distributors, Inc.

Using a kit makes things easier, but there are plenty of other ways to make your new year party sparkle. If you take that last sentence literally, why not consider adding a few sparklers to your wedding cake as it's brought out. Glitter, confetti, and/or streamers could be strewn across the tables, and centerpieces could be a grouping of some traditional new year decorations. Or you could fill a top hat with flowers if you wished. Ideal favors for this theme would include noisemakers or party horns. The light of a candle could make any glitter or metalic items shine. Christmas wrapping ribbon curls could easily replace the streamers as a decorative element.

There are numerous color choices that would work well with this theme: black & silver, white & silver, silver with jewel tones, black & white (a tuxedo look), white & gold, black & gold or even jewel tones with an accent of gold. For a very festive look, why not consider jewel toned tablecloths. They don't have to match, and various colors would look best. If you'd like it a bit more formal, try topping colorful tablecloths with a square of white. This theme is also one in which balloons could play a role. Whether you choose to have balloons in your centerpieces, balloons decorating the tables or balloons dropping from the ceiling at midnight...they will add a festive air. If you choose to have your reception occur when the old year meets the new, you could do a number of things to celebrate: ring in the new year with bells, drop balloons from the ceiling or even gather all of the couples to share in a kiss at the stroke of midnight.

The Millennium and Y2K Receptions

Technically Y2K (abbreviation for "The Year 2000") is an entirely different thing than the millennium. In short, the millennium should be celebrated on January 1st, 2001 rather than January 1st, 2000. For explanations, please visit these sites:

What Millennium is it Anyways?
Jerry Wilson asks "Does the Year 2000 Start a New Millennium?"

Which date you choose to celebrate the millenium on will affect how succesful your reception will be. If you decide to celebrate your wedding and/or reception on January 1st, 2000...you will likely run into a few problems. The first is that your guests may well have other plans for "the biggest party in history", and you may find that they are unable to come to your wedding or reception. Another problem you are likely to face is finding vendors that still have the date open. There are of course, exceptions. To illustrate how much of a problem this can be though, consider that in my (population 6000) small town (far removed from most major areas) there are but a handful of wedding vendors with the date still open. I can count the number on one hand. This includes: florists, bakers, popular sites, wedding planners, DJ's, bands, photographers and videographers. In addition, you may have to deal with vendors that don't want to work because they fear that the Y2K Computer Problem will disrupt normal life. It is very likely that January 1st, 2001 will be less crowded, vendors will (in many cases) still have the date open and guests will be more likely to come. Hopefully, the Y2K computer bug will be taken care of by then as well.

You can decorate either theme much in the same manner that you would a regular New Year's reception. The major difference is that The Millennium and The Y2K receptions will be bigger and fancier. Get out more streamers and party hats! Be sure to supply your guests with plenty of noisemakers and party horns! Most of all, be sure that you and your guests have a great time!

Mardi Gras Receptions

The colors of Mardi Gras are purple, green and gold. If you wish, you can start by making these colors predominant in your decorating scheme. If it's simply the Mardi Gras party atmosphere that you are going for, why not pass out masks as guests arrive at your reception. Favors could include strands of beads wrapped around small boxes filled with gold foil covered chocolate coins. Confetti, glitter and streamers can decorate your tables, and centerpieces could include such items as: masks on sticks (into more traditional floral centerpieces), a grouping of jester dolls or even metallic strands of beads arranged around and through traditional centerpieces. For further mardi gras party ideas, please be sure to check out Virtual Bourbon Street's advice on How to Throw a Mardi Gras Party. It includes decorating ideas, atmosphere suggestions and recipes. Mardi Gras supplies can also be found at Accent Annex.

Of course, if you are planning on throwing a Mardi Gras reception, you'll need to learn a bit about Mardi Gras. The resources below will help you to do so, and will inspire you with ideas of your own.

Fattuesday.com
Fat Tuesday.com gives you extensive information on history and includes sources for party supplies.

ICorp's Carnival New Orleans
ICorp provides goes into depth with many subjects relating to Mardi Gras.

Mardi Gras Central
The Crescent City Connection brings you this list of links to peruse

Mardi Gras New Orleans
mardigrasneworleans.com brings you tons of info on every aspect of Mardi Gras.