Come as You Were - Boy Girl Party II

Adorable invites made by Rebecca! My friends Mimi, Rebecca and I gave a couple's party for 16 couples (that came) in February. We like to do a Valentine's party. This is the second one we've had, last year it was at the Pierce's home. My in-laws have a huge wedding venue/ home that we were able to use...so we had tons of space and it was a super fun night, if I do say so myself. We went with a "Come as you Were" theme, so everyone was asked to dress up in some way from their past...

The Ballerina and the Handyman (Jen and Dave Wilcox)

The CNA and the guitar shop employee (Summer and Chris Warmoth)

The jazz choir performer and the hunter (Wendi and Bret Reynolds)

The nerd and the pageant queen (John and Mimi)

The ballerina and the basketball player (Me and Jake)

The cheerleader and the letter man (Jennifer and Mike Maddock).

The super broken out teenager and the BYU football fan. (Chris and Rebecca Pierce)

The Disney enthusiast and the former BYU golfer (Carol and Gary Colvin)

Safeway employee and homes (Anne and Dillon Eugenio)

Track and field runner and an ex-Marine (Stephanie and Nick Mondrut)

Amanda and her husband didn't get the dress up memo.

She used to have short hair (that is a wig) and he was a Boy Scout. (Jennifer and Jeff Frink)

David and Uxua are from Spain...he was in the military and she was a nurse there.

We played a game using baby pictures from each person who came. It was fun, some people got every single one right!

We also played a game where the women were all in a row and the only thing showing was our toes. The men had to identify which lady belonged to them...just from the toes. Some dudes did not win any points on this game. Jake definitely knows my toes though :)

After that, we played a different kind of white elephant. This is the game people were still talking about the next week...it's just so fun, in spite of not sounding that fun. So it was played  like five years ago at a Christmas party with another group of friends. You can only play once, because in this game, the women come with a white elephant gift all wrapped up and the men just don't really pay attention to this...standard procedure right? So the women are all in on the joke that the gift they brought is something from home that their husband treasures that they would NOT want to be given away. Ideally, this is something believable, like the first time my friend played, she wrapped up some really ugly ties that her husband had of his grandpa's. Of course they are meaningful to him, and she wouldn't ever give them away, but she does complain if he tries to wear them...so it was believable to him that she might think she wanted to get rid of them. So there is one gift per couple, and the dudes just really don't question much about what was brought if the wives don't say much about it. IT IS SO FUNNY to see this all unfold, because the guys are seriously sweating the loss of their prized possessions...and the wives are seriously in the dog house. I heard one super nice man tell his wife, "If my dad finds out that you gave that away, he will disown you." AKA, "that hunting knife is more important to my dad than you are." As someone in the know, it is just basically non-stop fun, as you see something opened and then scan the crowd for the ticked off dude whispering in his wife's ear and waving his arms around wildly. Knowing what you know now...these pictures need only really vague narration...

Some of the dudes were really excited about their score...even at the expense of their friends...look at John and Dillon eyeing Dave's valuable comic collection carefully preserved in plastic covers...they look pretty excited...what about Anne...she no doubt is feeling Jen's pain...because Dave is totally freaking out (but also trying to save face a little bit, I mean, he isn't a toddler...the inner conflict is eating him alive...

"Is that my grandma's coin collection?"

"Those are my favorite jeans! I had my first kiss wearing those jeans!"

"I WANT MY JEANS!"

"Is that my Pearl Jam concert t-shirt?"

"Who is Pearl Jam, anyway, honey?"

"Dude, this shirt looks like it has never been worn...I wonder if I can sell it on ebay?"

"Honey, I'm trying not to make a scene, but that t-shirt is not something you just give away."

"Those are my ______ medals! They only give one of those to one soldier each year on each base..."

"Wow Dillon, that is impressive, our son will love them for dress up!"

"Honey, seriously? What are you going to do with those medals now...it's not like you wear them."

I like Jake's expression (right). "What is he going to do? His wife just gave away his favorite (and expensive) golf shirt."

"Not to beat a dead horse, but those medals kind of make me a big deal. I can still remember all the words my superior spoke when he gave them to me."

Below is a picture of the hat I secretly wrapped, this hat Jake loves and got from an Alaskan trip and he wears in the winter outside all the time, I don't like it because he looks like a hunter person, which he is not. I knew he would be so mad when he saw someone else opening this gift for keep. His reaction was priceless, his jaw dropped and eyes got huge and basically asked how I could do something like that! hehe!

I think this is a "you had to be there" kind of event, but I totally promise if you do this with a group of unsuspecting friends...it will be all the rage. It is super fun!

After all the games were over with we just turned on some tunes and had a little dance party on the dance floor. Jake and I and our friends Rebecca and Chris played at the DJ station, which was a super crazy, state of the art mixer with a ton of super easy and amazing options. It was so fun...even if it is a tough job to play music that everyone will be excited about...I thought it was fun to break out some of the oldies...

Cast and reel her in. Oh yeah.

Work it, Jen!

Jake and Ashley at the DJ station.

A slow dance...

Shall we dance? 

Thanks to my in-laws for allowing us all to party. It was a blast planning it all, thanks to all who came! The night reminded me of many memories I had growing up of watching my parents plan and prepare for many parties they had with their friends, they had a 40's party once, many luau parties, Lion King (when it first came out haha), and a cruise ship theme party, to name some. Fun traditions, carrying them on.

~The End ~

(Thanks Rebecca for letting me basically just copy and paste this post from her blog with a few add on's of mine :)