A few weeks back, we celebrated Jake's 26th birthday over brunch together with family and relatives. The party, believe it or not, was held at our tiny home. We had about 20 guests who came in for brunch and surprisingly, nagkasya sila lahat, or should I say.... pinagkasya ko silang lahat! Hehehe! I even had floor layouts and drawings to be precise. Funny how I even asked my cousin-in-law to actually bring two of their ottoman cube stools at the party for extra seating for guests. I should've renamed the theme to "Bring Your Own Chair Party" nyahahaha!
Anyway, as I am a beginner cook who just learned the basic Filipino recipes, and because we were working on a specific budget, we opted to host a brunch celebration wherein food is much easier to prepare and is proven to be a hit for all guests! As we served the usual brekkie menu, we did offer various selections from appetizers to desserts- buffet style so guests would feel the reason of them having to wake up so early for the party is indeed worth it!
As soon as Jake agreed to the theme which is BRUNCH, and with colour palette of yellow, green, and orange, I started looking for pegs right away at Pinterest. I went gaga as there were just sooo many pretty inspirations online and I was really excited to shop for props! I knew exactly where to get things that I needed and ideas just flooded my mind... "I want this"..... "Oh this is perfect for the party".... "Guests will surely love this!" and I could just go on forever and then I thought, we were on a budget nga pala kaya nga nag brunch party.... but.... what is a party without an element of kaartehan anyway? So I still went ahead with the plan. Hihihi!
A few days to the party, Jake helped me set up the tables. We had one table mainly for the starters and refreshments, and the other one for the mains and desserts. I thought of dedicating a separate table for the sweets but then we were not able to find a table that was just enough to fit the corner, as well as rightly spacious to house all the treats so we resourcefully used our kitchen trolley to place the birthday cake and the brownies. The rest of the desserts were then placed on the same table as where the mains were.
Here are the foodies that we served for Jake's BRUNCH party:
STARTERS:
1. Cereal Bar (Corn Flakes and Coco Pops)
2. Mini Pancakes topped with fruit slices- strawberry, blueberry, and banana
3. Butter Croissants
4. Bacon Wrapped Tater Tots
5. Quiche
6. Hash browns
MAINS:
1. Fried Rice
2. Kranksy
3. Beef Tapa
4. IKEA meatballs
5. Baked beans
6. Scrambled Eggs
SWEETS:
1. Blueberry Cheesecake
2. Mango cake
3. Brownies
4. Fresh fruit slices in ice cream cone topped with whipped cream
DRINKS:
1. Charlie's Lemonade
2. Charlie's Orange Mango
3. Apple Mango
4. Coffee
5. English Breakfast Tea
6. Swiss Miss Hot Choco
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| Invite by Moki Gray, Cutleries, streamers and buntings DIYd by me |
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| Cute little pancakes and our Starters Table without the milk and cereal scoopers yet |
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| The kids enjoying their bowl of Coco Pops cereals |
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| Yum! The Kransky and Tapa was everyone's favorite :) |
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| Guests :) |
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| See how close we are as a family?? Figuratively and literally true hehe! |
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with the birthday boy
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Whewww!!! That alone tired me! Even most of the food we served were "ready made" (ready to be fried, ready to be baked, ready to be assembled), nakakapagod pa rin ha?! Jake was even joking me "Ginusto mo yan!"Oh well yes, but then again...nakakapagod pa rin sya. Period.
I slept at about 11Pm the night before mainly because I finished cutting up the fruits ready for assembling the next day, marinading the tapa, finalising my DIYs, cleaning the house, etc etc. Jake helped me by taking in charge of the dishes, vacuuming the carpets, and cleaning the toilet and bathroom. I set the alarm for 6AM the next day. I was a bit anxious when I went to sleep because it's going to be the first party that we will ever host in our new house. But I was excited as well.
So I woke up at 6 for a 10.30 AM party. Albeit I organised myself a timeline, I went with my instinct instead and started working chop chop! I wasn't really panicking because every time I look at the clock, I am on the dot so I knew I was doing really well. Jake was awake by 9, took a shower then headed to the mall to pick up the fried ricethat we ordered. My mother-in-law arrived at about 9.30 and helped me make the mini pancakes. Then guests started coming in at 10.45 (Filipino time forever), and I realised I haven't showered yet! In the end, late pa rin pala ako hehe! On the other hand, I think all of our guests were happy despite being canned like sardines hehe! They appreciated the styling and of course the food (which btw, was wiped out) and they were also wowed of how I was able to pull of my plans by myself. I think also we were the first to host a brunch party for the family. It is usually always for lunch or meryenda or dinner that our family parties are set so it was nice to be able to do something different.
After the party, I went to our room just to change clothes and thought of having a small rest just before proceeding with after care. Okayyyyy in my dreams, because I was plakda right then and there the moment I I set my bum on our bed. Pagoda at its finest!
Jake hugged and kissed me thanking me for what I prepared for his birthday. He knew I was dead tired and so he voluntarily (read: with no feet dragging) tidied the place up, washed all the serving plates and cutleries, vacuumed the carpets, took care of the rubbish that when I woke up, everything is back in its place. It feels so gooood to do something special for the one you love but it feels 10000000000x better to be appreciated.
Just before the night ended, I was busy telling him all of my plans for the next party--- and my birthday is not even until August hehehe! I already have a theme in mind and in fact, I made mood boards pronto for the props and food and even down to games. Ako na ang party planner freak!
