Hosting My First Housewarming Party.

     I've mentioned a few times here recently that there was an event coming up this past weekend that I was getting very exciting for - the housewarming party for my first apartment. A lot of you asked for a recap of the party here on the blog, so here it is today! I have always had a love for entertaining. In high school, I always loved having small groups of my friends over for movie and board game nights, or even just to hang out. I would always try and bake special treats if I knew that I had friends coming over, and the promise of company was about the only thing that would motivate me to clean back in high school. ;-) My favorite thing about having people over even back then was that it was a great opportunity to make new friends, and for different groups of people to mix and mingle. The main thing that I was involved in during these years was the Interact Club (a community service club for high school students through Rotary International), and I always enjoyed inviting new friends from Interact Club over with my people that I'd known for longer.

     Thinking back to the movie and board game nights that I used to host (shout-out to my mom for always lending me the downstairs TV room ;-) ) was the inspiration that I had for having an apartment housewarming party in the first place. I wanted the housewarming not just to be a time to celebrate my roommate and I's first apartment, but also to be a time to bring all of our friends from various walks of our life (as well as my roommate's family since they live near the area) together! I am so blessed to have made many wonderful friendships since moving to North Carolina almost four years ago. I have friends from my former college (including my now-roommate- hey Ciera!), friends from my Alma Mater which include sorority sisters, internship friends, former roommates just to name a few, blogger friends, and now my roommate and I also have friends in our new bible study! I thought that our housewarming could be a delightful time to celebrate all of the special people in both of our lives.


   

     I planned to document the evening with my camera, but I ended up getting caught up in the moment and only have a few saved Snapchats to share from the party. So I figured that the best way to recap everything was just to share some thoughts and reflections from hosting my first housewarming, and the few pictures that I was able to get.


     *Accept the help of friends for party preparation: My sweet friend Cara from Caralina Style generously spent the whole weekend with me in Charlotte at my apartment and did so much to help me prepare for the party! Cara assisted with everything from helping me bake treats for guests to enjoy, making sure that I stayed on task for finishing cleaning the apartment, and even designing our housewarming party's fun Snapchat geo filter, which is pictured above! (Yes- you can buy geo filters for events! Info here). Everything was able to come together just in time, and most of that was thanks to Cara's help! I sure am thankful for blogging friends turned real-life friends.

 
     *Check the calendar before planning a party: Originally I wanted to host our housewarming shortly after my graduation, but due to a much slower concussion recovery than I anticipated, my roommate and I didn't feel completely moved into our apartment until the start of June (Well- I take that back. Ciera's bedroom was all set up- I just wasn't done with my side of the apartment! ;-) ) With an upcoming weekend trip home planned for the end of June, and the 4th of July after that, I thought that mid-June would be the ideal time for a housewarming. Unfortuntely, I set the event date before realizing that it was Father's Day Weekend. We had just enough people able to come that we weren't able to reschedule... but most of the people on my guest list weren't able to make it due to family plans for the holiday weekend! This is definitely something that I wish I had considered before setting the date.


     *Have party games on deck: Everyone at our housewarming ended up getting along splendidly: from my roommate's family members to our bible study friends to a few of my college friends! But had small talk been awkward or slow, I did have a few party and ice breaker games waiting and ready to go. I personally am always one for playing a game, it's a great way to get to know people, and priceless memories are bound to be made! One of my favorite group games is this free Charades app from that can be found in the App Store.


     *After the (show party) it's the after party: (Anyone catch the (sort-of) R. Kelly "Ignition" lyrics reference there? Haha.) Anyways, who says that a housewarming, or any type of get-together for that matter, has to be contained to the event itself? The real fun of the evening began when a group of girls at the party joined me for a fun night in Uptown Charlotte after the housewarming concluded!

With Cara from Caralina Style and Amy from Pastel n Pink - love these sweet blogging friends!

A mix of a few of my college friends, my roommate's high school best friend, my roommate, my blogger best friend, and bible study friends... plus one selfie stick. :-)

     Ciera and I are so thankful that despite the holiday weekend, some family and friends did make it out to celebrate with us. We also received the kindest and most thoughtful housewarming presents, which we were not expecting at all!


      I'm linking some of the art that is in our gallery wall in the dining room below:

     xoxo Miss ALK