Last weekend I had the absolute pleasure of celebrating my long awaited hen party!! Unfortunately my hen party had to be delayed due to Covid-19 and it meant that I ended up getting married before I was able to have a proper shin dig with my friends and family. However with restrictions lifting earlier this month, we were finally able to celebrate and have some fun. Even though I knew the hen party was happening, I didn't have a clue about what the theme of the party was as this was being decided by my sister and mum who were planning the whole thing.
Late morning on the day of my hen party I was visited by my mum and sister who were dressed up as pirates and came to deliver me a message that my hen party was going to be a Pirates of the Caribbean theme and they had a costume with them for me to dress up in! I was so excited to find out this was going to be the theme of my hen party and couldn't wait for it to begin!
When I arrived at the party, the decorations had already started before entering the house, with some boat sails coming out of a wooden bucket, a lantern and also a sign on the door greeting my guests to the hen party.
The sign was ordered from an Etsy shop and then my mum attached wooden poles to the top and bottom and some black yarn to hang it.
As I entered the hallway there was a skeleton in a crate that had been dressed up in pirate attire, holding a bottle, with some treasure on his lap!
The hallway had also been decorated with black sails!
To make the party Covid-19 friendly, the whole set up was done in the garden (thank goodness the weather held up!) and this is where all the little details came together.
As you can see from the picture above my mum got hold of some old wooden barrels from a seller on eBay and these were used as bar tables which were decorated with a pirate map, a light up bottle, some snacks, hand sanitiser and a pencil and paper for the party games that were coming up in the evening!
There was also a wrist band for my friends to take home with them as a thank you for coming to my hen party. These were bought from a seller on Etsy called Wishgem
All the bottles at the party were recycled bottles which my mum and sister had printed some pirate "Rhum" labels for and then got some LED bottle lights to put inside of them. These were also a gift for my friends to take home as a memento from the party!
Other decorations around the gazebo were some iron wall candle sconces which were sourced form an antique shop in Hove called The Interior house. These were hang on old pieces of fencing trellis that my mum had kept hold of, which was definitely worthwhile, as they came in handy for added decoration around the party!
There was a hanging centrepiece in the middle of the gazebo which my mum had made using two metal hanging baskets. She then added a semi melted candle inside.
There were also some hanging lanterns and bird cage lanterns which had candles inside.
The other decorations that looked so effective at the party were the boat sails that my mum created around the garden. The main sail looked amazing and had been stencilled on with a pirate design and put together using some old bits of wood and calico material. She also put a black washing basket on top.
There was another set of sails towards the back of the garden which were similar in design to the sails outside the front of the house. These sails had the addition of a pirate flag at the top.
At the back of the gazebo was another umbrella which had another sail attached to the back.
To finish off the back of the garden, mum also displayed a large pirate flag on top of one of the garden sheds.
Since it was my hen party, I was the Captain of the ship and was assigned my own special Captain's table, which was decorated with all the usual gubbins including a pirate map, compass, telescope, tankard, feather pen and more! Also can't forget the chocolate coins!!
I also had the treasure chest on my table as well, as all the rewards need to come back to the Captain of course!
Well I think that is a round up of most of the decorations, like I said earlier, there were a lot! In addition to the decorations creating a perfect atmosphere, I just want to quickly comment on the music that was played throughout the evening. A mixture of music from Pirates of the Caribbean film was played and also a backing track from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride from the Disney Parks was also used. If you have ridden this ride at Disney, you will know the music and I have to say that listening to it at the party made me feel like I could have been in the queue waiting to go on the ride!
Now let's move on to the Hen Party games - this was all my sister's hard work and she came up with some great ones that were right up my alley!
The first game of the night was "How Well Does the Wife know the Husband?" Previous to the party, my sister had sent Conor some questions. I needed to match Conor's answers to get the question right and for any I got wrong, I had to add a pirate costume accessory, such as a hook hand, eye patch etc to myself!
My friends had to guess at the beginning how many questions they thought I would answer correctly and then the winner would win a prize! As you can see from the picture above, I don't get them all right and some of them were a little bit tricky!
However I managed to walk away with a score of 7 out of 10 which I seemed pretty chuffed about above!
The next game was inspired by my love of Disney and was a simple quiz sheet called Disney Love Quotes. This game was sourced off Etsy
We simply had to match the love quote with which film it was from. Luckily the films were all listed at the bottom so we could only pick from those films as some of the quotes were a little bit tricky.
On introduction to the game I was also given some Minnie Ears that were nautical themed and had a veil coming out the back of them. The tulle veil was added to the ears by my mum and the ears themselves were sourced from an Etsy seller called Mouse Hatter.
Of course being a huge Disney fan, I managed to win the quiz and got to pick a prize from the treasure chest!
The prize treasure chest was an inflatable chest which can be sourced from places such as Amazon or eBay. The prizes were wrapped in small Hessian bags.
The third game of the evening was a very funny game indeed, which was good old Pop Up Pirate! We each had to take turns in heat matches against another player to see which two players could finally make it to the final! It may seem like a straight forward game, but once you've had a few rum cocktails it suddenly became quite interesting!!
The final game of the night was a creative game and was mainly for my crew mates to take part in as my role as Captain was to judge their creations. They were each given a pot of play dough and a few carving tools and they had to make a pirate ship. There were definitely a few interesting creations made by some of my friends but Bobbie managed to walk away with a prize for her very creative ship, including a wheel, flag, pirates on board and also a wave along the side of the ship!
Alongside these organised games there was also a game that my guests could play throughout the party which was to find the Pirate medallions that had been hidden around the house. There were 6 medallions to find and my guests just had to simply write down where they had found them on a post it note that they were given. Those that found them all, won a prize! The post it notes were sourced from a website called Zazzle and were personalised for my party.
Additionally my friends were also able to create their own pirate name for the party using the Pirate name code sheet. Next to this was a Bucket List that my friends could fill out as ideas for an adventure that me and Conor could have during our lifetime together.
A party wouldn't be complete without a cake and I couldn't have a pirate party without a pirate ship cake!
This fantastic cake was made by my sister who used a Pirate ship cake tin from a company called Nordic Ware. The decoration on the cake, including the sales, pirate and Kraken (Pirate of the Caribbean 2 reference) cut out looked amazing and it was finished off round the bottom with some sea blue icing!
And of course it tasted delicious!
For the final stage of this blog post I just want to touch on the theme of costumes! I thought everyone looked fantastic at the party, using a mixture of bought costumes and whatever people had lying around at home, e.g. striped t-shirts and shirts. A tie around the head for a pirate scarf, you get the jist! Here is a little look at everyone's outfits!
All in all it was a fantastic night and I enjoyed every second of it. The theming was amazing and I can't thank my mum and sister enough for everything they managed to put together for this. Also a huge thank you to my friends who came along to the party and celebrated with me!
If you have read this post for some inspiration for your own pirate themed party then I hope you have managed to pick up some ideas and inspiration to help you throw a fantastic party!
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