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!




One year on... (part 1)

This weekend will mark the one year anniversary of two significant life events:

It started with prosecco in The Marylebone...

1) First time of complete drunky-drunk memory loss. Scary.

I accidentally got obliterated-drunk on gin mojitos in The Marylebone for a friend's 30th birthday (nope, not replacing the rum with gin, replacing the the soda with gin, and keeping the rum. I hold the naughty barman responsible), crawled on my hands and knees from Mornington Crescent to Camden High Street tube in a silk dress as my wedges made it impossible to walk on the cobbles (what the....!!!!! - I never ever take my shoes off to walk. It's just not classy... oh right... ahem), gave myself minor concussion from falling backwards, like a rigid plank, on to the station concourse, vomited on my parents' driveway (we were homeless and living there at the time) and face planted in to the ground. I then yelled at my rescuers (my Baby Bro, his long-suffering girlf and my husband - who had been stationed at various train stops to capture me as they had no idea where I'd got on, and where, or whether, I'd get off) to "STOP MAKING A SCENE!". I should add the word "apparently" at the beginning of all of these sentences as, for the first time in my life, I have complete memory loss.

Hmmmm.

Not my finest moment.

The next morning over breakfast my father reprimanded me like the naughty child I am, my husband got up at the crack of dawn to get to work and left a bucket by head, my tee-total bro smirked at me, my parents' friends looked at me with sympathy (and at Mr G with DEEP sympathy) and my mother extended an olive branch of Fanta, bacon and paracetamol in my hour of utmost need... and then laughed at my unfortunate state.

Why not hide away and sleep it off in a darkened room, you ask? Why not stay away from them all... at least until I'd sobered up?

Well, life event #2 was about to happen...

2) Moving in to our new house, with the help of all. The. Family.

Yup... including the parents-in-law who were NOT impressed with the smell of stale gin and prosecco seeping from my pores, my waxy complexion, my inability to temperature regulate and so huddling in corners in Uggs and a hoody whilst they tried to keep cool whilst lugging furniture and my feeble attempt to look upbeat and excited about "house moving day!!! yay!!!".

At one point my Baby Bro and Baby Sister in Law found me on the floor in the "blue bedroom" (there was no blue bedroom - I think I was hallucinating!), head between my knees and sweat beading on my forehead as I tried to keep from passing out.

I updated my Facebook status to read something about doing the LMFAO shuffle with one of the moving boxes on my head like the robot in the video (clearly whilst I was still morning-after drunk)... and shortly thereafter, grabbing a box due to a wave of nausea.

I was not flavour of the day. Or month. Or week.

There was only one thing for it. I popped open the "yay, we've moved in" prosecco and took a long cool swig to steady my shaking hands and get me through the rest of the evening.

... and ended with prosecco in our new garden!

One year on, I'm planning to keep it classy at our anniversary BBQ... I might vom in the loo, rather than all over the driveway this time.

Sorry.

That was gross.

I've let my family down. I've let you all down. I've let myself down.

I'll stick to the elderflower presse...

Fancy dress 2013

I love fancy dress. I love to put a lot of thought and effort in to my fancy dress. And so I seem to write about my fancy dress excursions, costumes and experiences a lot.

My two most recent fancy dress costumes were constructed for two of my besties as we celebrated some exciting events.

When I grow Up...
Firstly, Katy turned thirty and had a "when I grow up party". I was finding it hard to pick an appropriate career choice to dress up as, but eventually I settled on being a cheerleader. I made my own outfit, with bits and bobs from some cheap high street shops and a trolley load of sequins and glittery fabric.

And some rose gold wedge trainers... an obvious wardrobe staple.

Gimme a K, gimme an A, gimme a T, gimme a Y...... cos I gotta!

Attention to detail! Team 30!!

latest wardrobe staple...

VikiHalo

Katy arrived as Legally Blonde - she is actually both, so it was a great choice. We wanted her to be a bunny girl though! Boo.
Claire came as Annie. She's actually a stylist, and although she grew up singing, it was not in an orphanage.
Nicky came as pathologist. She's actually a barrister.
Sarah came as Madonna. I can confirm that she is not Madonna.
Alison (of first Caterpillar fame) came as Willy Wonka, accessorised with Maverick. I'm pretty sure she does not own a chocolate shop.

So, clearly it was only Katy who followed her childhood dreams...

Legally Blonde

Cheerleader, Legally Blonde, Annie and a pathologist.

Willy Wonka and Maverick

 

Madonna and Slash

Elephant watcher and an astronaut

Honey Monster!

Best fancy dress of the night has to go to The Honey Monster.

Best career aspiration of the night has to go to Liz* for elephant watching (they are my first-fave animal after all) although she actually became an accountant. There's not a lot of elephant watching jobs going around these parts.

Best excuse for wearing a parrot costume (!?!?!) has to go to Tim. He wanted to fly...

Parrot.... ?

Great costuming! Great career aspirations! Great party!

Mad Wacey Tea Party...
Secondly, we all dressed up in Alice in Wonderland/Mad Hatter's Tea Party themed fancy dress for Claire's  EPIC hen weekend.

I was designated the Caterpillar and the brief was "glam, ATNM, photo shoot" rather than "local Am-Dram production"... quite how you're supposed to make a Caterpillar glam I don't know. I did a lot of research and most pictures involved slinky maxi dresses and cigarette holders.

I took inspiration from Holly Golightly because of the pipe and took the rest of the outfit from there. I purchased a tight blue midi dress and sewed little pink "feet" to my "belly-side". I got my hands on (in!) some long blue satin gloves, piled my hair up and donned some twinkly antennae in place of a tiara and went one better than the cigarette holder and used one of my many (un-used, decorative only) hookah pipes as an accessory.

Claire was the Mad Hatter and wore a variety of funky items and accessories. I remember the details of none, because I was so fixated on her ACTUAL Chanel sequined tuxedo jacket (borrowed from Katy), Katy came as Alice, borrowing my dress last at my Jubilee party last summer. Nicky dressed up as the White Rabbit and Claire and Nicky's Mamma Bear, Michele, of course, came as the Queen of Hearts. Liz* and Sarah came as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Mel rocked a Cheshire Cat outfit, Sarah (there were at least seven of them on the hen do) came as a flamingo and Jennie donned a giant teapot to transform herself in to the sleeping dormouse. Everyone else went mad on the themeing with flowers, cards, colour and stripes everywhere. It was amazing!

Great effort team!

* Liz is my newest Two-for-One (complete with sister Sarah) and I promised her a "pink word" and so here it is. Henceforth I shall always be able to link back to this post about her epic fancy dress creations!