A Hanky Pahnke Party

I'm a little behind in updating over here, but I had to share the details of a bridal shower that I helped throw for my dear friend Emily last month. She happens to be marrying a dude with the last name Pahnke (pronounced "panky") which means that OBVIOUSLY I was going to take full advantage of the giggle inducing surname and throw her a "Hanky Pahnke" party. I decided to take the "hanky" part of the party theme and run with a vintage hankie angle, because although I wanted there to be people throwing underwear all around during this party, I still wanted them to be doing it in a classy setting.

First, THE INVITES! I pulled out my trusty gocco and screened the pertinent information onto a bunch of frilly vintage hankies. Then I packaged them into velum envelopes so that the recipients could get a sneak peek of their individual cuteness and the post office workers could feel a little jealous:

Next, THE DECOR. We pretty much hung a hankie onto anything that was hangable. Vintage handkerchief buntings! Vintage handkerchief chair backs! Vintage handkerchiefs underneath all the milkglass serving dishes! I started worrying a little about overkill, but I think the fact that every hanky was a little different made it just feel nicely themed with just a hint of feeling like you were living in your grandmother's dresser drawer.

And it didn't hurt that the food was really pretty too:

For the entertainment portion of the evening, we threw a white elephant underwear exchange. Perhaps my favorite gift that was opened was the Buty Panty (aka the generic version of the Booty Pop) which calls itself a "natural looking padded panty preshaped with contour foam to resemble a curvaceous bottom." Needless to say, this was a hot ticket item.

You couldn't expect us to keep the whole thing classy, right?

re: An Earthquake Dinner

Our friends Emily and Rob invited us to their annual Earthquake Dinner, held appropriately every year on the anniversary of the big 1906 SF earthquake. This is one of my favorite "theme" party ideas because it combines a classy dinner party with a little useful emergency training.

The first rule is no electricity - all candlelight, all the time. That's how they had to do it in 1906.


We started off the evening with some appetizers and a presentation on "triage." Rob gave us a little lesson on how to assist in an emergency situation by quickly sorting victims by the severity of their condition. When you don't have the resources to treat everyone immediately, you determine who is in most need of urgent care by assigning them colors - green is able-bodied, yellow is for minor flesh wounds, red is critical condition, and black is ... well. You don't want to be evaluated as black.


Then we played a little game where we had to evaluate a series of photos of injured people, and assign them different colors based on a quick assessment of their injuries. It was a fun AND educational party.

I grew up learning about the importance of a 72 hour kit, and other emergency preparedness activities, but was thinking this week about how Derek and I don't have much of an emergency plan other than "Well, I guess we can drink the water from our toilet, right?" We took the first step by at least determining a meeting spot, so that if we are not at home during some sort of disaster that wiped out phone service, we can find eachother. Next step - maybe I should work on some sort of first-aid kit other than a pack of neon band-aids in the cupboard.

Any advice on emergency preparedness?

re: Earthquake Prepardness

Our friends Emily and Rob invited us to their annual dinner to celebrate the anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. I'm a sucker for parties with themes, and this one turned out to be both educational and fun.

First of all, appropriately, the lights were off and all business was conducted by candlelight:


Everyone divided into teams and participated in earthquake quizzes/challenges between courses (they served a yummy, traditional cioppino with toasted garlic sourdough bread).

The first quiz made us take stock of what we had on us that could be useful in an earthquake - cash, a knife, any food, etc. We lucked out with a new mom on our team, which means she had an entire purse full of cereal and munchies, while the rest of us unprepared fools just had cellphones in our pockets. We also were quizzed on basic earthquake facts and regional info, and had to identify things like water main wrenches and SF landscapes pre-earthquake. Our team did okay .. but mostly thanks to lucky guesses and the whole mom thing.

Nothing like a party where you are eating, drinking and being merry to remind you that you might not be quite as ready for an earthquake as you'd like to think you are.