Murder at the Manor

For the past year I have been thinking about what I want to do for my Birthday. Finally, about 6 weeks ago, I decided on the perfect way to celebrate: A murder mystery party! We used to host these dinner parties when we were newlyweds, and we went to a couple professional ones, but then we had children and there was no time or energy for such events.

When I told Ben about my idea, he said he wanted to join in the fun, so we decided to make it a couples party- with Ben promising to not complain about the mess.

We found a game on-line, from Britain. You buy the PDF, which was awesome. Ben did pretty much all of the work for organizing all the logistics for the guests- creating a spreadsheet so everyone could sign up for their character, printing out all the info, getting everything ready to go, etc.

I was in charge of the food. I used all the skills from helping at my sister's weddings- chicken salad sandwiches, Little Smokies (my dad's favorite at the weddings), cheese dips, fruit dips, etc.

We thought about what to do with the girls- have them spend the night at Grandma's? Get a movie for them to watch downstairs? Then, we told them about the party- and they instantly wanted in on the action. They wanted to help with everything- including serving the food. Claire latched on to being in charge of the drinks. Since we knew there wouldn't be a bartender as we don't drink, she became "The Fizzmaster."

We spent about 7 hours getting the house ready for the party- WHEW! It takes a lot of work to throw the party!

We set up a photo booth which was fun:

This is my prom dress. It fits! I was the rich, grieving widow- Em Fatale- while Ben was the chauffeur, Ford Escort.

Here are our cute servants:

The party was FABULOUS!!!! It was so much fun- we had such a great time! We had 20 total people at the house. It was a little crowded, but we were able to spread it out over our whole main level so it worked. Everybody really got into character and just had fun with it. It was a perfect group of people. I was crying I was laughing so hard. Honestly, this was absolutely the BEST night! The girls were so cute all night, and did a great job of keeping the food and drinks full. After the serving, the girls watched from the stairs- where Camille fell asleep and Audra need to take her up to bed.

The first round involved mingling- everybody went around asking all the characters questions, eating the appetizers, and trying to deduce the killer.

The second and third rounds involved us sitting and asking questions while we ate. Then, we all made our guesses of the killer.

It was a wonderful night! I am so grateful to have so many wonderful friends. I have always been blessed with wonderful friends- it is truly one of the great blessings of my life. And, tonight I got to enjoy them! What a fantastic Birthday!