I am SO beyond excited to share today's post with you today! It combines three of my most favorite things all in one-
a good party,
Downton Abbey, and
World Market!
Now if you follow me on
Instagram,
Facebook, or
Twitter, you probably saw some photos from the
Downton Abbey Tea Party that I posted on Sunday (and if you don't follow me, I'd love for you to join in the fun!). I wanted my tea party to be as authentic as possible, and my guests were amazing to dress up and add to the feeling that they were really having a full English tea.
I bought most of the dishes, serving trays, silverware, and food from World Market. They have an amazing selection of gourmet food from around the world, and I was able to find lots of British and European food that was perfect for the party! This made it very easy to put together, because I didn't have to spend much time in the kitchen preparing food, and could use that time on decorating and making the
FREE printable Downton Abbey trivia quiz that I'll be sharing with you in this post! Plus, I'll also share a
DIY Lady Mary Inspired Tiara/Headband that I made and wore for the party. I love the way it turned out!
Food & Dishes:
The food for this tea party was so easy! I wanted the food to be more substantial than just sweets, so I tried to create an English "full tea," or "high tea," complete with three courses. The first course consisted of the savory foods, like egg salad sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and dried fruit. Here's a little tip I learned- when using a three-tiered serving tray at tea, the bottom layer is always eaten first, so it typically holds the sandwiches and other savories. My tea party guests all ate off of the limited edition Downton Abbey dessert plates from World Market that are just beautiful, and match the other dishes and tea pot that are in the set.
The stands I used are the
ivory ones founds here, the
white porcelain cake stand, and the beautiful stand shown above.
The second tier, which was the second course, held
lemon poppy seed and
blueberry scones that I made from World Market's delicious scone mixes. One can't eat scones plain, you know, so I had some English
clotted cream,
lemon curd, and
orange cranberry marmalade that I served with them. The scones were amazing on their own, but when you add any of the spreads I just mentioned, they are just heavenly! Lemon curd will always be found in my fridge from here on out, it is THAT good!
For the third course came the sweets, and I did not hold back! I served
Walker's Shortbread from World Market, which everyone loved. I also served lemon lavender meringues, mini phylo tarts with whipped cream and cut strawberries and kiwi on top, and an assortment of European chocolate covered cookies, all from World Market. It was nice to serve such a good variety of food, and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.
I also found a small jewelry holder at a craft store that I thought would be perfect for serving Jordan almonds on. I love how tiny it is!
It wouldn't be a proper tea party without the tea, so because this was a Downton Abbey Tea Party, I just had to have the
limited edition The Republic of Tea tin from World Market with the Dowager Countess herself on the front. For those who don't drink caffeine, I also had a
Republic of Tea herbal peppermint chocolate tea that was delicious. The tea was served in the
limited edition tea pot, and then poured into beautiful
Downton Abbey teacups.
My sister-in-law Rachel loved to "do the Downton," with her pinkie up, of course! On a side note, look at her beautiful ring! It's an antique silhouette ring, and was replaced later that night with an engagement ring, woo hoo! Congratulations Rachel!!
DECORATIONS:
I lucked out, because my husband's grandparents have THE perfect house for throwing a Downton Abbey tea party! The way their large home is decorated makes it look like it is from a whole different era, which is exactly what I was going for, so I didn't have to do much to the dining room or the formal living room. I used a white tablecloth with white flowers on the large dining room table, and bought some pretty white and peach roses for the table. Every English tea party needs fresh roses, right?
I thought it would be fun to have some
Crawley family portraits on the table, so I printed out a photo of Lady Mary and Matthew on their wedding day, and a photo of Lord Grantham and Lady Cora as well. I found the
perfect frames at World Market to put them in, and they looked great on the table with the china and dishes. I also found this amazing
key bottle opener at World Market a few months ago that I fell in love with. I think it looks like the perfect front door key to the large Downton estate, don't you?
I also made pretty little place cards for each guest with the word "Lady" before their real name. I could definitely get used to being called "Lady Laura" ;) It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
I found some pretty
silver candlestick holders and
taper candles at, you guessed it, World Market! They added a nice ambiance to the table.
Each of the ladies got to take home a cute little favor- a small bag of Jordan almonds. I bought these adorable little bags from
Wholeport. I love the lace and the tiny key detail on them!
ACTIVITY:
How well do you know Downton Abbey? I wanted to have some kind of activity for my guests to do, so I created a
Downton Abbey Trivia Quiz based on seasons 1, 2, and 3 of the show. I came up with many of the questions, and also found some
here that I used as well. I found a wonderful vintage flourish design that I included at the top and bottom of the quiz that I just love.
If you'd like to test your knowledge of the show, or if you plan on having a Downton Abbey premier viewing party, you can go ahead and
download and print my FREE Downton Abbey Trivia Quiz HERE. It prints two quizzes per page. I'll include the
answers at the very end of this post, and I'll make them extra small so you arent' tempted to peek ;) Enjoy!!
I didn't think the quiz was too hard, but my sister-in-law has watched every episode of each season, and thought that the quiz was pretty tricky, so if you check out the quiz, leave me a comment and let me know what you think! Was I too tough?
Fashion:
All of us dressed in lace, pearls, ruffles, curls... anything girly and dainty! This was their attempt at being serious, haha.
Can you believe all of these lovely ladies are my sister-in-laws? Minus my grandma-in-law in the back :) They all were great sports and looked amazing.
I made a DIY hair tiara/headband that I based on Lady Mary's wedding tiara that had small beautiful leaves that I love. You can find the easy DIY here.
And now for the sweepstakes! World Market has partnered with Downton Abbey and is giving away an AMAZING
trip for 2 to London, England, a private tour of Highclere Castle, a visit to the set of Downton Abbey, and a $1,000 World Market gift card! Three first prize winners will also receive a $500 World Market gift card. Amazing contest, right?! Can you imagine being the winner of this one? It would be life changing! Be sure to enter
HERE, and hurry, because the
sweepstakes ends 12/27/13. Good luck!!
Here are the answers to the quiz... how many did you get right?
1. Isis 2. Spanish Flu 3. Shirley Maclaine 4. Anna 5. The Canadian Railway 6. Mr. Bates 7. The Cheerful Charlies 8. Breast Cancer 9. Vera Bates 10. Gretna Green (Scotland) 11. Patrick 12. Sir Anthony Strallan 13. Lawyer 14. Her eyesight is failing 15. Harem Pants 16. Edna Braithwaite 17. William Mason 18. Violet 19. Matthew's fiance 20. Puts a bar of soap on the ground outside the bathtub for Cora to slip on
xo, Laura
