The Beverly Hills Hotel: Favorite Things Party

We've all seen the iconic images of The Beverly Hills Hotel, entrance lined with palms

that leads to the red carpet walkway into the lobby. A graceful pink palace in the hills known for it's celebrity status and luxurious finishes. This beauty is well known for its signature banana leaf wallpaper with accents of bright green, blush pink and gold. Let's not forget the crystal blue pool with sun chairs, cabanas and lemon trees. If I close my eyes tight enough I can almost see myself there, lounging poolside with a drink in hand! SNAP...back to reality (did anyone else just start signing the Eminem song? No? Just me).  

This gorgeous hotel was the perfect inspiration behind my latest party. I wanted...wait, needed...a fun ladies night and what better way than to host a Favorite Things party. I have done a few of these in the past, but this time I decided to change the rules up a bit. If you have never thrown one yourself I highly recommend it, I got a lot of my inspiration for this particular party from the Jenny Cookies party here, and this one by Craft my Party.

I started with the invitations, Alyssa from Just a Little Sparkle did her magic once again and designed this perfect invite to fit with the party theme. Along with the invitation she created an insert so guests knew how many of each item to bring and the dollar amount. 

The purpose of this party is to bring your favorite thing and to leave with several new favorite things. I have changed the number of items and the dollar amount and each time everyone always has a great time. This time I did it as more of a shopping experience rather than a gift exchange, like I had done in the past. I think this was way more fun, all of the ladies loved getting to shop and chat about what each other had brought.

For my group I decided on everyone picking two different favorite things and then bringing 3 of each of them. So they arrived with 3 of one item and 3 of another, 6 total. Each guest got to leave with 6 different items. The dollar limit was $5-$10, you could easily make this more if you wanted. It is fun to see what creative things people come up with.

After the invites went out I received so many excited responses and the girls were instantly thinking about what they could bring. We were all so excited and since the theme was Beverly Hills Hotel, set on my 5 acre spread in the PNW I needed to get their minds in paradise mode. I made sure to send plenty of pool, tropical drink and palm tree photos! Hey you have to be creative when you are living amongst the evergreens! 

As each guest arrived I placed their favorite items out on display and gave them each 6 mini cards to write their names on. These would act as their ticket, they exchanged the ticket for the item they wanted. This step really isn't necessary, but handy if you have a large group. There were so many fun and creative things we couldn't wait to get shopping!

Since most of my guests hadn't actually met before, we mingled over food and drinks. This gave everyone a good opportunity to get to know one another and the party flowed so nicely. 

We munched on a charcuterie spread, fresh mango & kiwi, green salad and caprese bread. I served spiked lemonade to drink and lemon water. 

After about an hour or so of mingling we went around the room and each guest shared what they brought and why they loved it! My favorite things were mini cake plates and the Eat More Dessert cookbook. 

To make the fun last a bit longer, I had each guest exchange only 3 tickets at first. We had more drinks and dessert before exchanging the final 3 tickets. 

For dessert I served lemon cupcakes with buttercream frosting topped with lemon zest. 

Gretchen of P.S. Sweets, created these amazing sugar cookies. She recreated the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel logo, added some banana palm leaves and lemons. They were so pretty and yummy too!

I have a sweet friend who does flower arranging locally. I told her the theme and she created these amazingly gorgeous tropical arrangements. They fit the space so beautifully!

As a little thank you, I gave each guest a small box of delicious coconut almond chocolates. 

These favor boxes were so cute, and easy to make. I order the boxes from Oriental Trading and filled them with the chocolates. I bought a leaf garland from the dollar store, wrote "Sweets" in gold metallic marker and tied the leaf to each box. 

All of the ladies had so much fun! Pretty sure I heard a few mention they would be hosting one next...I sure hope so, because it is the perfect ladies night. Shopping, food, drinks and lots of laughs equal a perfect combination in my book. Such a fabulous group of ladies, I can't wait till the next one!

Party Styling & Photography: AK Party Studio
Sugar Cookies: P.S. Sweets
Flower Arrangements: Brittany Masino
Tissue Tassel: Glam Fete
Palms, Favor Box, Balloons, Honeycomb Balls: Oriental Trading
Cupcake Wrapper, Confetti: Tomkat Studio