What do you think of an Old Hollywood Glamour Theme for my Sweet Sixteen Party?

Question

I really like how glamorous Hollywood used to be (well it still is, but back in the 40s and 50s it was REALLY glamourous). Does anyone have any ideas for decorations, music, or anything for this theme?

Answer 1

woah this sounds cool hmm you should put glitter everywhere and maybe everything could be like black and white and you where red lipstick or something idk the hollywood sign could be there

Answer 2

Google some images, and some background information.

Try to decorate your party room from that.

I just remember the clothing, but you can't force people to wear those clothes. I remmeber there were beads, pearls, and it's glamour.

Good Luck with your Sweet 16

Answer 3

music i say hire a swing band. get a black and white checkered floor. wear feathers in your hair. name the tables after celebs.

this place has lots of items for favors and decor

http://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/search...

Answer 4

Awesome idea!  Rent Casablanca, or some other great older flicks, and play them in the background!  (That way you've invited the oldies too!)  Older hardsided suitcases could make great holders for plates, cups, and napkins.  (Open them up and lay items inside.)  Rhinestones... sparkle, pearls, and all that fun stuff... wow.  

I love the idea of the "Hollywood" sign too.

Answer 5

we did this theme:  We had a dance and rented a hall but you can save money by looking for a recreation area in your area and checking your local parks, however in our area there were too many rules, so we had a hard time finding a hall. The parks required security to be hired for teens and I live in the burbs in the midwest. You have to ask if you can decorate and about the food. A lot of places require you to use a caterer which can be expensive and wont even let you bring in your own cake, so you have ask. We were not able to use tape only sticky tac and usually no one lets you use confetti.

We hired a DJ. It is 100 bucks an hour. Make sure you ask if they supply lights and make sure they have a microphone. They should have those 2 things and make your DJ a list of the songs you want played and dont forget to include an entrance song if there is one and happy birthday if you want that one. Include group fun songs like electric slide or whatever is popular now.   We also listed a bunch of golden age hollywood songs.  We had those playing for the first half hour as guests arrived and minged before the grand entrance.  

1) FRED ASTAIRE-THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT

2) JUDY GARLAND-SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW

3) GENE KELLY-SINGING IN THE RAIN

4) HOWARD KEEL-ANYTHING YOU CAN DO

5) MARILYN MONROE-DIAMONDS ARE A GIRLS BEST      FRIEND

6) NAT KING COLE-UNFORGETTABLE

and others like this:  http://www.rhino.com/store/productdetail...

Pick a day not around a holiday because a lot of people do family stuff around holidays and Sunday mornings are for church so avoids that. Also it is about 1/2 the price if you have your party on a Sunday evening compared to a saturday. We rented a large, fancy hall for 500.00 on Sunday for a party from 6-10. That way all we had to do was serve appetizers and not a full meal, because also you have birthday cake in that time. so that is enough food.

Our appetizer experience:

We just had our sweet 16 and had to use a caterer in order to get the hall but you can make everything yourself. We had 45 people.

We ordered a fruit tray, cheese tray, veggie tray, taco dip and chips and silver dollar sandwich rolls.

No one touchede the veggie tray. The cheese tray was 1/3 eaten. The taco tip went over great and had to be restocked twice, the fruit tray went over great, and the silver dollar rolls went over great. They were ham, turkey and beef. These are hand size and perfect and I saw the rolls for this at the grocery store.

Anyway, so if I were you I would make a small cheese tray, make a double batch or taco dip, and have a good fruit tray and make the silver dollar rolls.

put together.

Taco Dip:

2 softened cream cheese,1 16oz sour cream, 1 packet taco seasoning.

Mix with mixer. Put in bottom of a cookie sheet. Top with shredded cheese, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes and green onions. Use the cheese but you can altered the rest to your taste, maybe add black olives. Make 2 of these. Serve with tostitos scoops.

Fruit bowl,.Whole pineppple into chunks. Slice strawberries. Add whole table grapes no seeds, add chunks of watermelon, and cut oranges in slices cut into triangles. This is best made the night before so that the juices can all run together and stir before serving.

Silver dollar rolls:   http://www.heb.com/yourHEBStore/SD-deli-...

It is just shaved deli meat and cheese triangles. You dont have to put lettuce on them, ours did not have it. t. The ones that we had catered just had real butter on them and they had mayo and mustard packets on ice on the side.   You can make all this yourself the day before easily and our caterer delivered them to the hall the nigtht before our party and it was fine.

You have to ask how much time they will give you extra to decorate before your actual event and if you will be charged extra for that. Some bowling alleys have cheaper rooms to rent and you dont have to bowl, it is separate from that. Also some restaurants have party rooms, where you can decorate and dance but you order from their menu for your friends. Probably cheaper than a hall.

For invites you can buy the cheap ones from party cheap  or get personalized hollywood ones from Handykane.com.  . They were only 1 buck a piece and came with already stuffed in an envelope with your return address on it and a portion of the purchase went to charity: We used single movie ticket We titled ours Sixteen Candles. They have other hollywood ones also. Make sure you put on the invite the dress code. We said black/white semi-formal  for guestes and the birthday girl and her date wore formal, gowns and tux to stand out. Usually only 1/2 the people you invite will be able to come, especially teens because a lot of people work and in the summer a lot of ppl go on family vacations.  So if you plan on 100, invite 150.

For decorations to start off you have to have a sign in board. A board your friends sign as they arrive. We bought  trifold presentation board from  Walgreens or you can get one at any office supply place.: We left the center white. The outer 2 folds we covered with red gift wrap from the dollar store. We put a red scalloped border around the outer 2 folds we got at the dollar store( the ones the teachers use on bulletin boards.  Around the center we put film strip border from party cheap.  We bought silver glitter letters from the craft and spelled out SIGN IN centered at thet top of the center of the board in the white section. We attached them with double sided tape dots from the craft store. We bought 2 Hollywood Jolee scrapbook pages and put the pictures at the bottom of the outer folds and randomly around the board:  These included the Hollywood sign, movie cameras, film reels, etc.  So the middle is left blank for pple to sign and the outer folds that are red get covered with a collage of pictures of the birthday person. We also bought a scrap book page with palm trees and sweet 16 and stuck them randomly on there too.

Our colors were gold, black and silver.

We had large round tables, 8 of them. We bought black tablecloths from the dollar store but bought  beautiful gold overlays from efavormart cheap. For centerpieces we used  the movie cascade  ones from partycheap. We also had on the table a balloon weightfrom party cheap.  We attached black, gold and silver latex balloons helium filled and one mylar hollywood balloon from party cheap.  I also bought black and gold cut out foil stars  palm and hand size and placed these randomly on the table for a punch of color . You can also hang these from the ceiling for an extra effect. Also on the table we made tent cards for flash cameras: You can use any word processor. I inserted a movie camera clip art. I put Nicoles sweet 16 and then worded the card like the ones they show on handykane.com.  We got the cameras at Aldi food store for 2.99 a piece. We bought a total of 60 balloons, gold, black and silver. We had 8 tables and made the arrangements as I said above. We made the same arrangements ands put 2 around the opening of the hall, 2 on the cake table, 2 around the DJ table and a few others randomly. We bought these 30 inch large clapboard balloons to put around the dance from party cheap or bulk balloons. floor:http://www.partycheap.com/Hollywood_Cla....

We bought move star standups, marilyn monroe for the hollywood theme but we also got paris hilton for the teens which went over really well for picture taking, especially the boys. We got these for 23 bucks a pc on ebay new and they combine shipping if you buy 2 so you save money:

We bought these huge hollywood signs: http://www.andersonsprom.com/p-18782-mov... . They are  56x35. You cant really see how it is. It is actually like an A frame. It comes with another black cardboard backing and these rods that you are supposeed to hot glue together so it is like an A-frame or like a tent to stand up. You have to assemble this. All 3 pictures come on 1 long roll or poster. You have to cut it in 3 and then they give you an exact knife to cut around the edges. It was not that hard and this tape that sticks it on. Well we found that you dont need to make the a-frame because you can bend them ever so slightly in the center and they stand up fine. They give you the sparkly foil stars to glue on (not hot glue) .4 for each picture, 4 lg and 4 small. So we decided not to make the A frame so we had 3 extra large pieces of black cardboard, the same sizes these pictures are on. So we went to Target and bought 3 more posters, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and James Dean. We used the rest of the tape we had and put them on there and we put 2 lg and 2 small stars on all six of these. They all stand up just fine so by doing these we got 6 huge decoration pieces for only 90 bucks. We go so many compliments on them.

In the middle of the dance floorwe put one of those hollywood walk of fame sgtars from party cheap with my daughters name on it.  We also bought hollywood decocrations to put randomly around the room from party cheap. We got move cutouts, hollywood street signs, walk of fame door fringe, etc.

For favors We bought organza favor bags in black and gold from efavormar, the same place we got the table overalys in black and gold: We got clipboard keychains, movie buttermints, black and gold mardi gras beads (which we handed to guests as they arrived) and personalized star trophies that we put a friend quote on at oriental trading really cheap.  We bought sweet 16 lollipop mold and used pink chocolate from craft store. The bags are 1.99 for 100 with ties (you can use these as favor bags as well). It was 1.50 for 3 bags of chocolate and we made 27 lollipops. Dont forget to buy sticks.

This red carpet from party cheap was fine but check the length and it has a .  We got this too:  http://www.shindigz.com/catalog.cfm?pgp=...

Answer 6

I think that's a fun idea! Rent The Great Gatsby or movies like that to look at the decorations on the parties.

Answer 7

I think it is a fantastic idea, go for it - the memories will last a lifetime. The theme speaks for itself, so your guests shouldn't have any problems dressing up with creative force. As for the decorations, the more lavish and glamorous, the better - lot's of fake pearls in shampagne glasses all over the place, perhaps with tea lights in them. Lot's of feather boas ( you may borrow them from your mothers friends, every female has one!) and fake furs you can purchase at fabric stores ( buy wisely, so you may use it later, for example a large pink or white rectangle will cover the couch for the party but it also may serve as a bed throw in your bedroom later). dollar stores carry diamond shaped trinkest that you may also utilize in every possible way. I lined a bathtub with them and placed three tea candles along the bottom - guests had a beautyfull surprise while going to the bathhroom and never had to use the light switch the bathroom glowed so nicely. Basically, lot's of fake pearls of all sizes, diamonds everything and fur - and you have it covered.

Good luck, have fun and take lot's of photos!

Answer 8

thats an awesome idea!!!

Answer 9

Awwww that's sooo cool!!!

Make it really glamorous, and make sure everyone dresses 50's! Play some old music in the back and and decorate it in silvers and black and golds, which are all pretty glam colors!!! :)

Good luck and Happy Sweet Sixteen!!

Answer 10

google it..:)

Answer 11

a fake version of the hollywood sign, maybe have everyone dress as a 50's movie star and give prizes for the best costume. use glitter. coke signs since coke was big back then. use silver, purple, blue, and anything metallic or sparkly. use popular songs from the 50's.

Answer 12

Totally Cool!

Answer 13

this is a great idea.. they could all dress up too....