Old Style Afternoon Tea Party

emg

I have also made sandwiches ahead and stacked them back in their bags to keep them fresh in the fridge and then cut at the venue. Keep your sandwiches really simple - I just did 3 - ham, cream cheese with cucumber and egg mayo. I took crusts off and cut them into 3 'fingers' which looked really good. You dont need to go crazy with lots of savoury stuff. Think about when you go out for afternoon tea, you get some dainty sandwiches, the scones and then a couple of little petit fours and that is plenty. Dont feel you need to serve lots of other stuff else it just turns into a standard buffet. Also, beg, borrow or steal as many of those tiered cake stands as you can to make it look more like 'afternoon tea'

Evil_Olive

We did this for our wedding in August this year, instead of a sit down meal.
There were 120 people and we managed to bring it in (just the cakes, sarnies and tea/coffee part) at less than £1 a head.

We bought loads of frozen eclairs and cream cakes from Iceland, giant bags of teabags from Costco. Scones cream & jam, Coffee, Bread (Value brand), milk, sugar and sarnie fillings from Tesco and Asda,

Tesco value brand scones (10 for about 50p I think) taste like home made if you 'freshen them up' in an oven for 5/10 mins and are a more manageable portion size than some of the 'posher' scones.

We made sure we booked a hall with kitchen facilities (the separate space, with fridge, oven and giant tea urn was a godsend) and tables/chairs which we could use. It also had a serving hatch from which we served the tea/coffee which we found very useful. We laid out the cakes and sarnies buffet style.

We paid a couple of my sisters friends to lay out the food and serve the tea but if you go for the sitdown option for more elderly people as suggested above, you will need more helpers to serve it to the tables.

We avoided too much veg (especially tomato) in the sarnies so that they would keep better.

I had a terrible time trying to work out how much milk we would need - how many cuppas from a pint etc. It might help you to know that we bought 3 x 6 pint cartons for the 120 people and had 1 and a bit cartons left over at the end though our guests only had 1 or two cups each as it was only an hour or so long before we went on to the evening bit.

My nan used to love tinned salmon & cucumber sarnies. She used to get a tin of salmon (the cheaper 'pink' salmon is perfectly adequate) and mash it up with lots of butter, malt vinegar and black pepper with a fork to make it more like 'potted' salmon.

zippychick

I've merged this with our existing afternoon tea party thread. Do read back so you can see the previous discussion

Hope it goes well for you

Zip

happiness.v4

Hello you lovely folk. Hopefully I'm posting in the correct forum... if not feel free to move this...I'm still new (but a genuine person!)

For my 30th Birthday I am hosting an Old School Afternoon Tea Party.... it'll probably be about 20 people and small people dropping in over the afternoon....

I don't eat meat so won't be catering for carnivores...

What would you suggest food wise?

I was thinking little cheese and tomato/cucumber sandwiches/tuna and mayo (?) cut up into triangles...with maybe cheese and normal scones....and then some cake?

Drinks wise I have told people to bring a bottle if they'd like anything alcoholic as I'll be providing cups of tea and soft drinks....

What do you think you would like to see at a Birthday Party?

Any ideas for decorations or where I could get disposable cups and crockery cheaply?

Thank you in advance for your help xx:p

stardrops42

Hi, I'll be doing a tea party for my sisters birthday in June so hopefully it will be outdoors. I've started buying vintage china tea cups, milk jugs, cake stands etc from charity shops for pennies, you could try your local charity shops for items. I'll also be making bunting from scrap fabric/old clothes. I'm also on the look out for floral/lace tablecloths in charity shops. Hope that helps

happiness.v4

I love charity shops, car boots and ebay and I do have a lot of things in my house courtesy of charity shops.... I have hand made my table cloths.... However milk jugs etc. I will go for a charity shop hunt this week! (Party is Easter time!). Your party will have nice weather!

cutestkids

That sound like a lovely idea some of the things I would do are

Mini quiche
Cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches
Egg and cress sandwiches (if you are OK with egg?)
Scones
Tea loaf buttered
Shortbread
chocolate dipped strawberries
Cheese and onion rolls (like a sausage roll but the filling is a think cheese and onion sauce)
Individual cheesecake or triffle (get some cheap shot glasses from the pound shop and layer sponge, custard cream and fruit)
You could also do pinwheel sandwiches using wraps just fill roll up and cut into 1 inch bitesize pieces.

happiness.v4

cutestkids wrote: »

That sound like a lovely idea some of the things I would do are

Mini quiche
Cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches
Egg and cress sandwiches (if you are OK with egg?)
Scones
Tea loaf buttered
Shortbread
chocolate dipped strawberries
Cheese and onion rolls (like a sausage roll but the filling is a think cheese and onion sauce)
Individual cheesecake or triffle (get some cheap shot glasses from the pound shop and layer sponge, custard cream and fruit)
You could also do pinwheel sandwiches using wraps just fill roll up and cut into 1 inch bitesize pieces.

OOHH!!! I LOVE the Shot Glass cheesecake/Trifle idea!! GENIUS!!! Thank you!! Great ideas!!! xx

NewShadow

I'd suggest paper bunting (triangles stapled to ribbon or string) and paper chains, in pastel colours.

We decorated a hall for a friends 1950's style wedding, and it cost hardly anything and looked fab.

bluelass

im a vegetarian too.Oven bottom muffins are nice as well, you could make soft cheese and cucumber on these and wholemeal or malted bread cut into triangles with egg mayonnaise and pickle (it is yummy). Vegetable and cheese quiches cut into slices is a good idea too. French fancies and Victoria sponge looks nice. Poundland sell disposable plates and cutlery plus there foil serving platters look nice with a damask pattern on them. All the food I mention can be bought from Lidl if your on a budget morrisons have a good savers range too. Lidl sell sparkling wine at a god price including Prosecco.