How To Throw A Love-ly Valentine’s Day Party

Valentine’s day is one of the best holidays to show your love to not only a romantic partner, but to family and friends as well. A party is the best way to gather all of the people you love, but it needs to be a unique affair, and not a typical pink and red decor explosion.

If you want to throw a lovely Valentine’s Day party, see some of the tips below on how to decorate, what to serve and fun party ideas to keep your guests entertained for hours, and learn how to show the love.

Make your decor unique, but with some tradition. Hearts are always going to be the standard for this love-fest of holidays, but if you want to really wow, try something with more sparkle. Hang a mirror ball a big open space, keep the music cranked up for dancing and make tissue paper pom poms string from the ceiling. For your bar or food table, use a gold picture frame or antique picture frame to showcase your menu or specialty cocktail.

Have a fun DIY photo booth area. Cover one well-lit wall with a blank fabric canvas, and include props like a heart-shaped silver picture frame, or funny faces like mustaches or giant lips. Encourage your guests to use the photo booth with their camera phones, and post to social media with a custom hashtag. That way all of your guests can review the photos the next day to see how much everyone enjoyed the night.

Serve the salty and the sweet. If you are having a large number of guests, you may want to ask a few close friends or family to bring a dish to share. While everyone agrees that this is a dessert-filled holiday, balance your cookies, brownies and cupcakes with a few more savory snacks such as chips, dips or a delicious homemade trail mix. If you plan to serve more of a meal, try something like soup that will feed a lot of people, with a large salad on the side. This will warm their stomachs and their hearts during the chill of this winter holiday.

Keep the kids entertained with a craft table for making valentines. If you know that this will be a mix of adults and children, have a low table designated as an area just for the younger ones. With some paper, washable finger paints, glitter and glue, the little artists can make valentine's for all of their family and friends, and leave you free to mingle with the older crowd. If you really want to impress the parents, keep several old t-shirts on hand to serve as go-to smocks to keep those carefully chosen party clothes from getting ruined.