A dear, dear friend of mine wedded her fiancé last weekend! I had the privilege of being her maid of honor. (Not her maid of justice, her maid of virtue, or her maid of revenge.)
It was my task to throw her a bachelorette party.
I had no idea how to do that.
See … the parties I’ve thrown in my life this far often included mismatched thrift store tea sets. Dress ups. Flower crowns. Murderous short films about late 18th century British taxation of tea. The only bachelorette party I’ve been to included axe throwing, pizza, and wild games of Mennonite Manner with all the party attendees crouched on the floor snatching an inkpen away from each other and screaming, competitively, affectionately.
What is a bachelorette party? Research provided little practical inspiration. Nothing made sense for this particular friend and the group of guests who would attend the party.
Then a month ago, I remembered.
My friend has wanted to have a ren-faire-themed medieval feast as her birthday party for years.
She’s hashed out details. Every spring and summer. Year after year, it hasn’t worked out.
She is going to move away at the end of this summer and won’t be in town for her birthday.
So why not throw her dream party for her bachelorette?
Three of us threw the party.
We hauled possible feast decor to the host’s home on Tuesday night.
We laid it out … all the candlesticks and silver platters, wood trays and brass goblets, crowns and daggers and the moss-covered Thing of the Forest puppet all from our prior short films.
It was all coming together.
Potatoes. Carrots. Chocolate cake.
Why stop there?
We have friends with collections of swords and more medieval objects. Why not see how many on-theme weapons we could borrow to decorate the party?
We drove around the golden July evening and brought home a big basket, an armful of medieval-recreation swords, and a suit of chainmail: heavy!
And then it was Wednesday.
The day of the party.
To be honest … my family was out of town, I was tired, and I have this problem where anytime I have a house to myself, I start to sing musical theatre songs really loud.
No food. No chores. Only singing.
Thankfully, my two friends arranged the party and I drove loads of iced tea and flowers from the backyard and a lot of grapes and costumes and fake leaves over to them to set up. Then I went home to break bread. Alone in my house.
I stood in the kitchen and sang Matchmaker, Matchmaker all the way through seven times in a row while the bread baked in the oven.
I decided this was a problem. (Later I discovered the podcast Suzie Explores, about creativity and curiousity, with Suzie Collier, the mother of Jacob Collier, cures my ailment.)
Bread was baked. And I was going to be late!
I rushed off to the party, where my incredible friends had created a glittering, candlelit, colorful feast and were already dressed up in garments fit for a ren faire.
The bride-to-be was shooed away from the feast room and sent up to the room full of costume items for guests to borrow for the evening.
My fellow hosts and I stood at our feast.
We wandered around the tables and admired our work.
It was a dream come true for all three of us to get to throw a medieval feast party.
We almost didn’t let anyone else in and just enjoyed the silence and the peaceful ambience of the fully decorated room.
We were reminded of Flora, a short film we produced last October:
When we decorated the cozy 1874 cabin a few days before our production week began, after the cabin was all set up with quilts and stove and canned goods and dried oranges and a rocking chair …
We turned off the lights and just sat there, in the cabin we’d dreamt of all summer, silent as we enjoyed the peaceful ambience of the decorated room.
But eventually we invited our bachelorette party guests into the Mudroom/Great Hall and a wonderful party commenced!
Now we know that between us, we have all that you need to throw a medieval feast.
I am sure there will be many more in our futures.
I am so thankful to have these people in my life. For friends who all want to play together. I met my cousin at a craft store a few days later who was also buying supplies for another wedding on the same weekend. She’d seen photos of our party and said, “Dude, you have the coolest friends.” And I’m inclined to agree with her.
The bachelorette party was followed by a wedding, and life goes on, joy and sorrow and love flowing under all of us, a season done and new life beginning.
An unhinged rendition of a faux medieval song at midnight after the party: