It's mad mad world....

Last Friday night we hosted here at GG central a dinner party for 6 of our friends with a theme of "Mad Men". Mad Men is one of my all time favourite TV shows, I love the era, the clothes, the music and the drinking and smoking (at work no less!).

I decided about 2 months ago this was to be my theme and I set about to orchestrate my dinner party with the right mix of people, food, wine and of course dressing up!

First of all, in the mad men days dinner parties would have been a rather formal affair,  so in true GG style a formal invitation was sent out, ( my concession to modern times was that it was via e-mail rather than snail mail), here it is

Personal information is redacted for security purposes.
Hello, NSA! :-)

I googled images of Don, Betty et al, to create my invite, also searched for old (read here sexist) advertisements which I then put together  and laminated to make placemats,  here they are below , and the best thing I have them for the future  (or available for hire, at the right price! :-)

I love setting the table to look special, so I worked out how to fold my lovely white linen Nanna napkins (from my op shop scouting) to make them look like a man's white shirt, then I used a thin black velvet ribbon to make it look like a man's tie, and I was rather thrilled with the result.

My effort is on the left, in case you could not tell!

Some funky orange and hot pink coloured dahlias in a vase set the scene perfectly.

Ready and waiting for the guests to arrive, the Parker furniture is rocking this theme!

Now the menu...
this had to be authentic to the era, so I went through my cookbooks, internet and my own (repressed) memories and came up with this menu, and then added a touch of my own sub-editing to it and then, folded them in thirds to create a place card for the table.

My Beef Wellington! Thermomix making a guest appearance

so I had the invites, table decoration and menu sorted, what else was left but my apparel. 

Luckily for me,  one of the Junior Glenquarry Goddesses is a very skilled needlewoman, and a couple of years ago she made for me a skirt based on a design that Grace Kelly wore in Rear Window, here is the original

and here is GG herself in her interpretation of "being Grace Kelly"

Now some pics of our fabulous friends, and see if you can spot the photo(s) taken later in the night.....

there is no prize for guessing correctly!  And they all were great and got into the spirit of the evening and made an effort dressing up. I must say it is so much fun to be a little bit special and dress for dinner, why don't we do that anymore?  ( I think I might have another post on that topic).

My  chocolate mousse with pistachio Persian Fairy Floss! 

My very dear friend, the Pyrenees Princess, we went to school together , not with the dog of course! It was a Ladies College after all! 

Well, this has been a long post with lots of photos, I hope you enjoy reading about my dinner party and I am now thinking about my next "themed" dinner party, any suggestions?

BTW I have to hold another Mad Men dinner for the rest of the family and offspring who were not able to attend this one, so stay tuned.