4442

Elegant 40th Party - Champagne & Cake

July 2002

MariAnn in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA

Honorable Mention

I have been to so many boring, dull 40th birthday parties so I wanted to make my husband's party different and elegant.  I selected a dessert party that was black tie. 

I sent out Crane's engraved invitations.  I selected a desserts for each decade and paired it with a dessert wine or port from the same decade.  The dessert we made were 1960's round brownies with mint smooth frosting decorated with peace signs paired with Tiamarie. 

For the 70's, we had a strawberry fondue with orange and lemon pound cake cut into flowers (hippy looking) paired with a 1970's sweet German wine.  For the 1980's we made chocolate raspberry moose cake topped with a matching Jelly Belly paired with a 1980's port and for the 1990's we had a fruit terrine paired with a sparkling Muscat wine.  For 2000, I had the dining room tablecloth in Burberry plaid and the cake was two layers wrapped in Burberry plaid ribbon fondant.  My daughters even had Burberry plaid taffeta dresses. 

Of course we had champagne with cake.  The other highlight was that I decorated each table (dessert) to match  1960 purple and blue tie dyed tablecloth, 1970 sparkling paisley orange and avocado green and 1980 pink and green and the 1990 black and white animal print.  Our florist made great arrangements to match the theme (daisy's for 1960, etc.) 

I had menu cards made for each table speaking about the highlights of the decade and the wine and desert. I also had a black and white picture of my husband from each decade.  I colored small parts of the copied picture with a light markers to match the table and had great paper behind the picture in the frame. 

Everything was coordinated down to the ink color on the table cards.  We had a cheese table with a server and each dessert table had a serve too. I was a night to remember.   I also had a port and cigar table with dried fruits and nuts outside for the men decorated with elegant crystal and silver antique pieces. 

We gave all guests Zingerman's (tall cylinder with a colorful label) cinnamon sugar (they made a custom label for the top and tied a black bow around the beautiful can).  In addition to all of this, we served breakfast at 11:30 p.m. with a buffet in our kitchen.

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