Every guest got $25,000 in fake money to gamble with. At the end of a 3 hour time span, the casino and games would shut down and you would get a raffle ticket for every $10,000 you had remaining. Even if you blew through all your money, you still got one raffle ticket. We had five baskets in various themes that you could put a raffle ticket in and try to win. At the end of the evening, Ian picked a winner from each fishbowl and gave the basket to them.
The five baskets' themes were:
-Lazy Sunday Morning (specialty teas, scone mix, starbucks gift car, starbucks hot/cold travel mug, and hot chocolate flavored spoons),
-Game On! (Dave and Buster's gift card, Huge Puzzle book, mini Pac-man machine, and Uno cards),
-With a Cherry on Top (Cold Stone gift card, 4 ice cream cone shaped ceramic bowls with spoons, ice cream scooper and a container of sprinkles),
-Chillaxin on a Saturday Night (Regal cinema gift card, microwave popcorn maker, popcorn kernels, and popcorn seasoning salts)
-All About George (filled with an undisclosed amount of $1 bills - there was $75 of them)
Jeff, Ian and I didn't really want go the DJ route. Every party Ian has attended has done a DJ and we really wanted to do something that was a bit more unique. Additionally, the DJ is usually loud (very loud in some instances) and the adults can't really have a conversation without talking very loudly. Most DJs are geared to focusing on keeping the kids entertained and that is completely fine, as this is a party for the Bar Mitzvah kid. However, this tends to leave the adults off the dance floor while games are being played and orchestrated by the DJ and his crew.
As we were coming up with ideas on what we wanted Ian's party to be, it was like a light bulb went off at the same time for all of us. The casino and games theme was just the unique thing we were looking for that would be entertaining for both the adults and kids.
We had fun carrying the theme throughout the evening. We had custom decks of playing cards made and used the back of the box as a place card for our guests.
The cake had a casino theme with fondant dice, chips, and playing cards.
The centerpieces were a work of art (if I do say so myself) with a martini glass filled with either dice or poker chips set on a mirror base. There was confetti that had the heart, spade, diamond, clubs, "IAN", and "13" decorating the base. Additionally, there were 3 balloons attached to each martini glass with a string of lights so it looked like the balloons were floating on the lights.
And along the perimeter of the room were big 22'' mylar balloon in the shape/design of queen of hearts, king of spades, and all the suits of cards. These balloons were anchored with the string of lights too.
In addition to the casino and games, we also had a green screen photo booth. This was a special request by Ian. The photographer put together an album for Ian with a copy of every picture taken. When looking thru the album, I hardly saw any pictures of Ian and his friends. I asked him why this was and replied with, "They didn't want to leave the casino tables." That is a sign of a successful event!
These are all the photos I can share until the photographer sends me the photos she took. I didn't take any pictures all day! I think everyone had a good time. Honestly, the day went by so incredibly fast and I felt like in the span of a finger snap the 4 hour party was all of 30 seconds long. It probably didn't help much that I had 3 cosmopolitans and 1 white Russian to drink. But after a long, long day, it felt good to have a few. ;)
A part of me wishes we could go back in time and I could attend the day's events as a guest.
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