At the beginning of the month, we threw our 2nd annual Derby Day party! We aren't from Kentucky, nor do we breed thoroughbred horses… Carter just likes it… and so, Chism Derby Day was born!
The party is centered around the races, but we like to do a few special things to make it fun and a little different from the year before. From the invitations, I designed a 'Derby Day' logo and had koozies made. This was top on Carter's list, so he loved them. We ordered a lot and so we put 'est. 2014' at the bottom, so we could use them for many years to come!
We didn't change too much with the decor, so we were able to reuse a bit of last year's items. I painted last year's horseshoes white and gold (they must have missed my camera on the day of) and I made bow-ties last year that I stuck in all sorts of places and I used those again too.
The other fun thing we added this year, was a bartender! Last year we had a Mint Julep Bar, and well the mint juleps went much faster when people didn't have to make them on their own. The money was flowing too, because our pot was over 2x last years with the same number of guests. Those two things may or may not have been related!
For the food, we had southern snacks like deviled eggs, fried chicken, and pimento cheese… and of course, I made food signs.
A couple days before the Derby, my nephew asked if there was going to be cake and well, you just can't say no to that little guy, so I made some last minute cupcakes.
Last year's betting cards were great, so I designed some new ones to match with the rest of the paper goods. Guests, young and old, could fill out their bets to hand in to our 'bookie' (played by my brother-in-law) and we printed out all the official horse packets, so people can 'try' to make educated bets. We use a betting app on the iPad, that we display on a second TV. It calculates the odds and displays the winners as soon as the race is over. There's always a few guests that are REALLY glad they came to our party!
We don't have children, but we are a proud aunt/uncle and had a handful of kiddos coming. We borrowed a friend's bounce house, had bubbles, sidewalk chalk and Carter's mom brought his childhood saddle that we threw over a hay bale for them to play on. (This was my idea and was so glad that the kids actually played on it, because I love it!)
Most importantly, amidst the endless rainy days we are having in Texas, we had the most perfect 80 degree day. The sun was shining and thanks to that rain, our backyard was a green as my fascinator (purchased on Etsy!).
'Til next year!
