I live in Switzerland, and Swiss summer is not like European summer. We don't get many sunny days. A lot of them are dull, with barely any light, and every so often the temperature drops to something closer to autumn and you're back in a jacket, maybe even boots, because it won't stop raining.
For my 33rd birthday, I decided the mood was going to be tropical, whatever the weather did. I wanted everyone who walked in to feel like they'd been dropped on a beach a few thousand kilometres south of here. That was the whole idea. Everything after it, the menu, the drinks, the decor, was tropical-inspired.
It rained on the day. It rained badly. We had a great time regardless. Everyone was in the tropical mood, nobody let the weather touch it, and that was the entire point: to have summer indoors on a day that refused to be summer outside.
The Invite
The invite sets the whole thing up before anyone arrives. Mine announced the theme and the dress code in one go, so people knew exactly what they were walking into.
The Dress Code
Tropical, head to toe. A dress code is a fun way to make people part of the decoration instead of an audience for it, and everyone stuck to it. Coco, my dog, handled quality control. She inspected every outfit personally, and she was in full dress code herself.
The Welcome Drink
The welcome drink came from Costa Rica. I had it in Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean side, and became such a fan that I recreated it for the party. It's a Coco Loco.
Next to it, passion fruit mojitos and a homemade mango iced tea for anyone who wasn't drinking.
The Tropical Finger Food
Tropical mood, tropical food. To save myself time, I made one big batch of teriyaki marinade and used it across everything, which is the easiest way to feed a lot of people without cooking a lot of separate things. So there were teriyaki chicken skewers, grilled corn, and teriyaki-marinated eggs. And the bacon-wrapped bananas, the one nobody sees coming and everybody finishes first.
The Fruit Skewers
A tropical party isn't a tropical party without fruit, so I served fruit skewers straight out of a carved watermelon.
The Cake
For dessert, my favourite hummingbird cake, topped with dried pineapple flowers. I dehydrated the pineapple for three and a half hours the day before and dusted the flowers with edible glitter, so the whole thing looked extra. Worth every minute.
The Mood
This is where a theme lives or dies. Everything was green and pink. Palm trees, flamingos, string lights, and a bird of paradise flower, which I had to buy fake because a real one is almost impossible to find here. I put a tropical video on the TV and made a playlist called Tropical 33, which you can find on my Spotify.
The lighting did more than all of it. I have Philips Hue smart lights, so I set the whole apartment to one of their ready-made tropical themes, pinks and greens everywhere. Once the light matched the rest, the room stopped looking decorated and started looking like a place.
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The Wow Effect
Every party I throw has one unnecessary thing done properly. This time it was a flower for everyone on arrival, a small present they could wear for the night and take home afterwards. It's a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have. It's also the thing that makes a guest feel like you thought about them before they walked in.
What I'd Do Differently
I made far too much food. I always do. I ended up with an enormous amount of leftover skewers, and it wasn't the first time.
Here is the thing to count on, because it happens every time. About ten to fifteen percent of the people who say yes won't come, and some will cancel on the day. So don't cook for every single name on the guest list. If you do, you'll be left with what I was left with. Cook for the ones who'll actually walk through the door.
This one is genuinely hard for me. My mum raised me to be a good host, and to her, a good host has enough food to feed an army, then stands over everyone saying "have some more, have some more" until they give up. That's why I am the way I am. But you can learn from my mistake. It saves money, it saves time, and if food waste bothers you as much as it bothers me, it saves that too.
The other thing I'd change is where the food goes. Once you're hosting ten or more people, it's a logistics problem. My dining table is big, but it doesn't seat ten, and I put all the food on it anyway. That was a mistake. The drinks worked because I set them up separately, over in the kitchen by the bar, serve-yourself, DIY cocktails, everyone grabbing what they wanted while I helped when I had a minute. I should have done the same with the food. I have a large coffee table in the living room, right next to the dining table, and spreading the food across both would have made the whole night flow better.
