Rock n Renovation: The House Warming Party!

Shell de Mar & Kat Williams

July 30, 2017

Is this the most ridiculous photo ever taken of me? Probably.

Skirt: Coast, Boots: YRU

You know those parties that are so much fun you forget entirely to take photos? That’s kinda how our house warming was! I apologise in advance that this post is a bit light on pictures, but there was too much wine and good times happening to get the camera out.

We decided to have our house warming less than a week after we moved in. We wanted it to be a way to thank everyone who had helped us get the house but also for everyone to get the chance to see it in it’s ‘before’ state! This was actually our first time ever hosting a party (well, except our wedding I guess) so we were quite nervous about it! I think it was a hit in the end though (the vodka watermelon probably helped).

What started off as quite a casual get together ended up being a pink vs tropics vs unicorn themed bash for our nearest and dearest. Our invites, designed by my babe Shauna, were totally based on the Coast skirt that I’ve been so obsessed with since I bought it.

I had them printed at printed.com, which was very reasonably priced. I got them in 400gsm and it cost about £12 for 25 invites (although I did have to print them twice because the first batch had the wrong bloody date on them. Whoops!)

As a theme was starting to emerge I was inspired to pick up some palm leaf napkins from H&M, some cactus covered balloons from Paperchase (neither of which seem to be on their websites, sorry!) and on the day I kind of tried to artfully arrange my succulents and cacti collection around the place. This massive bunch of flowers from Wildabout Flowers also went perfectly with the colour scheme.

The unicorn addition came when Skye from Whimsical Cake Company contacted me and asked if I’d like some treats for the party. Of course I couldn’t possibly say no! She sent us unicorn cake pops, biscuits and pink marshmallows with adorable faces on them. My mum surprised us on the day by bringing along these perfectly matched homemade mini cupcakes (if anyone’s interested the edible rainbow and unicorn cupcake toppers on the cupcakes came from Lakeland!)

Originally I was going to order in loads of pre-prepared food, but when I priced it up it was going to cost a fortune. In the end Sophie and I made everything ourselves (I know right? So proud!) but when I saw that M&S were selling this cake I HAD to order one. It was so delicious and only £25! Hello perfect wedding cake idea. The website says it serves 12 but it fed 20 easily as we had some left over.

Everyone seemed to have a really great time which made me very happy. Who knows, now we have a big house maybe I’ll become quite the hostess. I’ve already offered to do Christmas eve this year (not Christmas day, that’s too high profile).

However the success can probably mostly be chalked up to enormous amount of booze I bought! Apparently £300 on wine/prosecco and £150 on beer/cider is a bit too much for 20 people… Who knew!? There were quite a few sore heads the next day! Not least of all because my genius idea of turning our fridge into a wine dispenser! Oh yes, it certainly was the hit of the party… Especially with my dad. I definitely get my love of wine from him haha!

Who needs a water dispenser anyway??❤?

A post shared by Kat Williams (@rocknrollbride) on

So as I said, I didn’t really take enough photos, but I wanted to share a little bit about our house warming party with you today anyway. Note to self – must think like a lifestyle blogger a bit more next time. Photograph ALL THE THINGS.

I’d love know what you’d like me to share about the house next. Maybe a little bedroom or office tour (since I’ve freshened both those rooms up with a lick of white paint and we’ve moved all our stuff in?) Or maybe you’d like to see more of the garden? How about a more general post about the renovation plans?

Let me know in the comments!

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