Engagement Party HELP - Need Advice

kim0819

Hi. I offered to throw an engagement party for a friend of mine and its next weekend. I'm having it at my parents house b/c they have a bar upstairs with a pool table, etc. Basically, its just better for entertaining than my house. My friend is more creative than me, is a great cook/baker, etc. I guess you can say she is a mini martha stewart in the making. She hosted a baby shower for a co-worker of ours and made all the food and desserts from scratch. It was all so good and I know I can't match up to her baking. I want her engagement party to be special and something she will look back on and say 'wow, that was really nice'. The party starts at 7 pm so not sure if people will eat before they come or if I should make dinner. I was thinking about making something small and having hors d'oeuvres, snacks, desserts...... She sd they met at an Italian restaurant down the street and told me to just get pizzas, antipasti and salad from there to make it easy. Do you think she was just saying that b/c she doesn't want to make me feel like I have to do too much? I just don't feel like that would be "engagement party" type food. Or I guess I could get that but also get a pasta or chicken dish? Thoughts? Suggestions? I think it would be good to have a bunch of finger foods/apps for people to snack on throughout the night. And how about a cake? Or cupcakes? Was thinking about an assortment of regular size or mini cupcakes? What can I do to make it more personalized?  Any games you would suggest? Decorations? I don't even know what people do or expect at an engagement party. Only one I went to was my sister-in-laws which was over the top almost like a mini wedding reception.  Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated. Sorry for the long rambling post.  Can u tell I don't do much entertaining? :(BTW, not sure how many people are coming yet but I sent out 20 invitations.  I don't know many of the people b/c they're more her fiancés friends (who are her friends now too).

joklein7

Try not to overthink it. At our engagement party there was Italian food. We had sangria and malibu baybreezes. My mom put pictures of us on a table- maybe make a collage of pictures of the 2 of them to display. For desert we had ice cream cake cake( you can put their pic on it if you want to personalize it), brownies, cream puffs and eclairs, cookies. It was very fun, people just socialized the whole time. Good luck!