Fancy Dress: A Harry Potter Party

I'm not alone in my friendship group with my love, nay obsession, with Harry Potter, nor my love of fancy dress. So it's a surprise that it's taken this long for one of us to have a Harry Potter party, or for us to dress up as characters from it. Last weekend my Harry Potter fancy dress party dreams came true.




Bella and the Birthday Girl: Vicky and Viki!

My fellow Harry Potter enthusiast, and younger sister to Bestie-Kim, Victoria chose this as a theme for her 30th birthday.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..... where's my broomstick?

A few months back we all received wax-sealed envelopes containing our personalised invites - "letters" from Hogwarts, welcoming us for our first day of school and a ticket for Platform 9 3/4. By personalised, I mean we were all allocated a character so there were no duplicates (you see now why we get on - it's not just the HP, or the YA fiction, the fact we've virtually grown up together, or the enthusiasm for party planning... it's the dedication to a theme and attention to detail. Amazing skills. Amazing). I was lucky enough to have been allocated one of my favourite characters (not to mentioned being played by one of my fave actresses) - Bellatrix Lestrange.

YESSSSS!

Itty, bitty, baby Potter.

Yesssss!!

I nabbed myself a faux leather basque from eBay (bad move - it came with a "bonus" free faux leather thong, and I now receive regular updates on their S&M gear as eBay assumes they are one ofmy "favourite sellers". Hmph) that wasn't dissimilar to Batman body armour, some whale-net tights, arm sleeve thingys, a wand, a replica necklace and VAT of hair products.

I tonged, teased, tore and generally abused my hair in to some semblance of a Bellatrix style, smudged the make up I'd worn to a day-party at another friend's house (yup - I'm THAT popular - two parties in one day. Yeah!), added some dark lippie and I was good to go...

... until I looked in the mirror and realised that if I broke down I'd be mistaken for a sex worker.

So rummaged in my cupboards and fancy dress box and came up with a strapless sundress which I wiggled in to as a slightly more demure skirt (the previous one had a split and with the thigh high boots, was wholly unnacceptable for "school") and then I was away.

Sadly, my "official" Bellatrix wand didn't turn up in time so I had to bluff it with a replica of Harry's wand instead. Don't judge me Potter-Purists.

Also don't judge me for not applying a temporary Dark Mark tattoo - I had a christening the next day, and I don't think it would have gone down too well!

So, anyway, here are some pictures of the amazing details and the brilliant, brilliant costumes...

A dark mark

Madam Hooch and He Who Must Not Be Named (who lost his mask!)

Harry and Ginny

Lupin and Luna

welcome to the party!

The Grey Lady (a.k.a. The Birthday Girl) in her Dia

Drinks in Diagon Alley

Dobby




Bellatrix and Fleur

McGonagall, Dumbledore and Moaning Myrtle

Enemies of the Heir BEWARE!

Snape and Fleur

Lupin, Harry and Fleur

Hagrid and Fluffy

Hagrid and Harry

Harry in Diagon Alley (looking for beers!)

potions, papers and horcruxes

Lupin got a bit wild after midnight!

Stay away from the dungeons... unless you're Slytherin...

Propoganda

Quidditch rings

Nice to meet you Sirius

This is strictly a non-smoking area.

Snitches

SORTED!

This way, sports fans...

Catching up on the news...

Tonks and Trelawney

The Tri-Wizard Cup

Oh how I miss Harry.

Oh, what's that you say? Another film in the pipeline, not to mention suggestions for my new fave YA-Fiction-Franchise boy crush to be included in the line up...

Waaaahoooooooooooooooooo!