Party Planning Part 2: Overview

Haunted Hotel Bones the Bellboy Costume (discontinued)

For those of you following along, this is where it begins. An overview of the master plan:

The Theme:

For this year's Halloween party we'll be working in a creepy, haunted mansion style theme. The idea is that the guests are being invited to The Manor on The Hollow, an old estate that's been converted to a hotel that sets on the grounds of a cemetery known as The Hollow.

In early October each guest will receive a packet from our fictitious attorney, Alfred E Beggley, ESQ. asking for their assistance in saving Master Smith's (the hubby's) youth. Included will be a letter from Beggley outlining the details, a The Manor on The Hollow visitor's brochure, their room key, The Grey Lady and Master Smith's calling cards and assorted clippings regarding the estate and the Fountain of Youth.

The Hunt:

We host a scavenger hunt with every Halloween party. In the past these have been pretty extensive (more on our hunts later) but I'm going to tone things down for this one. This year guests will have to do things like find where a specific prop is or figure out home many tombstones are in the cemetery. Once they've got the answers to all of those questions they will take those answers and use a key to locate the Fountain of Youth. One wrong answer from the hunt and they will fail to find the Fountain.

The Interior:

Since the scavenger hunt will be limited to just our property this year, our guests will be in nearly every room in our home. That means each room will need to be decked out to fit the theme. (What was I thinking?!)

The idea here is sheets over furniture and lots of webs, creepy cloth and gauze as a base and add props from there. We'll go room by room later.

The Exterior:

Not only is a cemetery theme my favorite, it's the easiest for me to accomplish. I have several (store bought) tombstones and skellies but there's plenty of things I want to add. The bulk of the construction list will be here so here's where you will see the most things that do not get finished. (Remember not everything will get done.)

And so it begins.