“The Next Chapter” Graduation Sunset Tea

Hello again! Yesterday I shared some photos from a graduation luncheon my friend Kelli hosted for our daughters with our life group mothers and daughters. It was a lemon theme to mark the girls’ “fresh start” for the college years! You can read about it here. Today I’m back to share the evening tea I hosted for the girls and their soccer friends (plus another friend and a cousin).

First let me back up and share about a tea my girls and I attended a couple of years ago that my friend Missy hosted for her daughter’s graduation. Y’all, this was the tea party of ALL tea parties, and you need to go read both of her posts as soon as you finish this one! It was a Hobbit themed sunset tea, and it was wildly creative, scrumptiously delicious, and awe-inspiring! Read about their Hobbit table setting here and the Hobbit tea menu here. Get ready to be wowed! It’s impressive. I was privileged to be helping plate the food in the kitchen and got to taste every course. Perfection.

In addition to a delicious menu and creative tablescape, another unique aspect of the tea was the setting and the time of day–in the woods at sunset! All of this spoke to my daughter’s love for tea, literature, and nature and as soon as we left that evening, she asked if her graduation tea could be in the woods at sunset. Well, of course!

We wouldn’t be copying the Hobbit theme (although The Hobbit is a favorite in this household!), but just the idea of a woodsy outdoor tea at sunset. So, for the last two years we’ve tucked away ideas as they came up in conversation and started a little collection of decorative items to use. The closer we got to graduation time, the more specific the theme became and since both our graduates love hot tea and books (Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, L.M. Montgomery, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, to name a few) we went with a “nature-inspired bookish sunset tea by our trickling creek in the woods”! Ha, how’s that for a theme!

My husband and son spent a couple of Saturdays clearing our fire pit area from the spring growth, washing the chairs, and even made a wooden cover for our firepit to turn it into a table of sorts, per my request. He’s the best! And my daughter and I finished gathering our supplies and finalizing the menu.

So, you might have noticed by now that the photos here show a tea that was not outside but indoors. Yes, sadly, after all our planning, well, it rained—no, it POURED all. day. long. We waited and waited for things to clear up so we could set up the outdoor area, but by that afternoon I had to make the call set up the party inside. Oh, and it was going to be so pretty and whimsical with lanterns hanging from the trees, candles flickering around a spread of good food, twinkle lights overhead, flowers in vases, books and lace and tea and the creek. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about throwing parties it is to be flexible, go with the flow, and be willing to change your plans at a moment’s notice. Pivot and proceed!

So, inside we combined the decorations we’d planned to use at the creek with some bird nests and tree trunk slices to bring a little nature inside. You’ll see some little white candle lanterns here and there. We had purchased a dozen of those to hang from the trees with multi-colored ribbon for some enchantment. I couldn’t use all dozen inside, but I did use a few. And now I’ll have them ready for another occasion.

I tied lace ribbon around stacks of the girls’ favorite books. These are books in which they’ve shared interests, favorite quotes, silly accents, and inside jokes (cringy Mr. Collins!).

Teacups, loose tea, candles, and vintagey flower vases completed the table!

On other surfaces I repeated the decor with more of the same flowers, teacups, and stacks of books.

The straw-looking lanterns are from Five Below and I purchased two back in spring. I’m loving them for summer.

The kitchen table was a little simpler, but with the theme still repeated.

Since we were originally planning for this gathering to not only be outside but down the hill in the woods, we decided paper plates would be more practical with the trek up and down the hill. My daughter found the prettiest vintage floral design from Amazon and we used gold plasticware and teacups leftover from my older daughter’s wedding.

Our first course was warm strawberry lemon scones with lemon curd and clotted cream.

We repeated some of the menu from Kelli’s lemon luncheon because they are the girls’ favorites. Again, Kelli and I divided the food preparations.

So, the second course included a tier of fruit skewers, egg salad sandwiches, chicken salad croissants, and pasta salad.

Beverages served were an Easter tea blend, an Apricot Jasmine tea blend, and chilled raspberry cordial as a nod to Anne and Diana (but without the tipsy!).

Our dessert tier included white chocolate raspberry bars, macarons, chocolate truffles, and southern cream cupcakes!

Kelli was there to help host and there was one other mom whose daughter doesn’t drive yet so I asked her to stay so she wouldn’t have to go home and come back. After the girls were served, we three moms ate in the kitchen talking and laughing. It almost became a contest between our table and the girls in the dining room to see who was having the most fun based on laughter coming from our tables. I think the girls won but only by a smidge.

It was such a fun night, and my daughter said it probably worked out better that they were inside, but they had so much fun it wouldn’t have mattered where they were anyway. They are such sweet girls and they thanked us over and over for inviting them.

Floyd was happy the party was moved inside as well, and he enjoyed our tablescape the next day. I don’t allow the cats on the tables, but he was so pretty sitting there I had to take a picture before shooing him away.

I’m so proud of our graduates and I pray the “next chapter” in their lives is richly blessed. They will be living quite a long distance from each other, but I know their bond is deep and they will always be, as Anne would say, “bosom friends”! Oh, and guess what else these two girls have in common. Both their middle names are “Anne with an E” just like our storybook friend from a green Gables.