If you’re hosting a high tea in Perth at your home (or at work for that matter) High Tea In A Box is a wonderful concept and a real lifesaver too!
I hosted my Sister In Law, Kristie’s Baby Shower on a sunny Autumn afternoon. Chef, Little Chef and I are absolutely giddy with excitement about having a new baby niece or nephew. Just a few more days until we find out 🙂
The Set Up
Kristie is another Chef’s Wife in our family. She is married to Chef’s little brother “The Pastry Chef” who himself has made high teas at the Ritz in London, desserts for Marco Pierre White, as well as lots of sweet goodies around Perth. He was a bit too busy at work to bake for us, though he did manage to knock up some delicious mini eclairs! Whoops, I’m getting distracted by food… back to the high tea set up…
Anyone who hosts an event at their home knows what a mammoth job it can be. As well as organising all the details for the event itself, you also want your house to be clean and tidy for all the guests. Not having to set up the table was such a time saver for me and Mary Jane from High Tea in A Box did an absolutely beautiful job. I simply left her the clean tables under my pergola and she set to work prettying them up!
Included in the set up are:
Cups and saucers
Plates
Cutlery
Jam and cream pots
Sugar pots, with sugar cubes
Linen table cloths and napkins
Milk jugs
Tea pots
3 tier stands with plates
Glasses and champagne flutes
The cups, saucers and other crockery come in a range of themes. I chose their Country Chic theme as their soft pastels suited the gender neutral baby shower perfectly.
All the lovely ladies arrived and mingled inside for half an hour while we busily set about plating the tiered platters with lots of sweet and savoury food and filling up the teapots full of boiling water.
Baby Shower Hight Tea – The Food
Once outside the ladies could tuck into the yummies we had made. High Tea in a Box usually also provide the catering with their packages, but allowed me to provide my own on this occasion. We had all been cooking up a storm for a few days!
We had mini quiches, little sandwiches, macarons, cupcakes, scones with jam and cream and lots more too.
I even managed to sit down for 10 minutes for a quick cuppa between refilling pots of tea!
Everyone commented on how delicious the cuppas were too. High Tea in A Box supplied us with Earl Grey and English Breakfast tea leaves for their pots.
The Decorations
I puffed up some pretty garland balls to drape around the patio and inside I decorated the gift table with mismatched vases of flowers and novelty rattles. I also added baby pics of the Mummy and Daddy to be, for a special touch.
I got a little crafty and made some baby-grow bunting for the room and table, which was so easy to make. I found a template on the internet, bought some scrapbooking card from a craft store and mini pegs to hang the bunting on some cooking twine. I was rather pleased with myself!
Games – we played “Don’t Say Baby”, where you start with 4 pegs and if you say baby someone can take your peg and visa versa. Whoever has the most pegs at the end wins. We also played a game where we had lollies in a baby bottle and everyone guessed how many were inside – the closest number won those. Finally we played “Baby Bingo” where we watched Kristie open her presents and ooo and ahhh over the gorgeous teeny tiny things and also crossed off items that she opened off of our bingo cards. For the prizes, I used the vases of flowers.
After the high tea was over, all we had to do was scrape the plates and place all the cutlery, glassware and crockery carefully back into their boxes. Ready for picking up. So there wasn’t a pile of dishes to wash – fantastic!
Thanks very much to the High Tea in a Box team for making the baby shower beautiful, stress free and a memorable afternoon for all.