Themed parties are the absolute best. Everyone has an excuse to dress up, they make for the best decorations, and it gives you a reason to try a bunch of new drink recipes! For Megan’s birthday this year we decided to go with the perfect little Great Gatsby soiree. Like I said, the three main parts of the party included costumes, swanky decor, and 20s style cocktails. Oh, and it wouldn’t be a birthday without a HUGE cake! Check out how we transformed our apartment and forced our guests into full Gatsby party mode (ok, maybe a tad less glamour, but an equal amount of glitter).

1. Costumes

For costumes, everyone went for flapper girls and suave suits. Adorning themselves with feathers, beads, pearls, and sparkle, the ladies were looking fabulous. If you’re looking for an easy way to throw a flapper girl costume together start with a sparkled, fringed, or lace dress in a boxy or floor length style. Add to it some long strands of pearls and a sparkled headband. Finish off the look with curled hair and red lips. If you’re feeling extra ambitious, tuck strands of your hair into the back of the headband to shorten the style to a bob (see Megan below)! To make my champagne colored flapper dress (for under $30 and in 10 minutes!) check out my tutorial!

2. Decorations

We got really excited about decor for this party. Most of our inspiration came from Pinterest, and we stuck with a gold, silver, and black theme. Oh and glitter. That’s a color, right?

We started with a wall of gold tinsel from Party City as a backdrop for photos.

We then bought gold glitter and 75 clear balloons. With a huff and a puff, we filled up the balloons with a teaspoon of glitter using a funnel, and then blew them up. Using some more gold tinsel, we strung the balloons from the ceiling at various heights to look like champagne bubbles floating in the air! We really loved this effect, and it worked well with our tall ceilings.

To add to the twinkle, we strung Christmas lights with soft, white sheer curtains to give an elegant effect.

The last step was to make a fabulous table setting for the food. We used a black tablecloth with a long piece of gold fabric running through the middle. To that, we added all of the food on gold and silver platters, tall gold candlesticks, some fun silver sparkling things from Party City, and lots and lots of Hershey kisses!

3. Drinks and Cake

Megan went all out with the drink menu. She found four fabulous cocktails from the 20’s that people absolutely loved. My personal favorite was the Southside. We set up a drink bar with shakers and shallow champagne glasses so people could serve themselves a beverage all night long.

We also had a little fun with the champagne bottles and covered them with glitter. This was not the most fun to clean up the next day, but it was SO worth it! Look at how cute they are!

All you need to make them is spray adhesive and glitter. Spray your bottles on the bottom half with adhesive and then pour glitter over them. I ended up picking up a lot of spilled glitter and patting it onto the bottle to make it stick better.

As you may have seen on my Instagram, I was asking people where I could buy edible glitter. That was for this glorious cake! The cake turned out better than I could have expected, and the white almond cake recipe I used was a hit! I am going to put up the full recipe and instructions for the cake soon!

I hope you have a ritzy evening using our Gatsby party inspirations!