Reese Witherspoon will likely be partying big-time Sunday night, but we wondered how to impress friends and turn our humble homes into celebrity-worthy hotspots.
With the Academy Awards just days away, we turned to David Tutera, celebrity party planning expert, for tips on hosting an award-winning Oscar bash.
Tutera, author of “The Party Planner” (Bulfinch, $29.95), says treat your guests “as if they were at the Academy Awards party” and recommends the following:
• Play dress up. “Ask your guests to dress glamorous. Black tie or formal” . . . or “festive or funky” – anything but the norm.
• Roll out the red carpet. Have digital cameras on hand and “take snapshots of people arriving . . . walk your guests through the house as if it were the mini-Oscars.”
• Toast the Academy. Create a “glamorous champagne drink or martini drink.” Tutera raises his glass to the “Hollywood Glam” cocktail: 1½ ounce Pama Pomegranate Liqueur poured into the bottom of a champagne flute. Fill flute to top with champagne. Garnish with 23-carat edible gold leaf.
• Go for the gold. Tutera suggests dipping the edges of red roses in glue and then into gold glitter. The red-and-gold flowers will make a perfect centerpiece on tables adorned with “red velvet tablecloths with gold cording for rope extensions (like on the red carpet).”
• Card your guests. Direct people to the dinner table with “envelopes with red stickers (that say) “and the winner is’ . . . the person’s name who is sitting at that table.”
• Don’t forget the sweet stuff. Serve bite-size desserts such as miniature star-shaped cookies or bowls of red and gold M&M’s (available at shop.mms.com) mixed in with popcorn.
• Let the games begin. Have guests judge “best and worst dressed on stage and the people at your party.” Just make sure your guests have a sense of humor. For prizes, Tutera suggests movie theater gift certificates or DVDs and soundtracks of Oscar-winning features.
• Put it in the swag bag: “It’s a fun thing to take home when they leave the party.” Suggestions include a frame sparkling with red and gold glitter (with those red-carpet photos from above), movie tickets, vintage books or – if you’re totally emulating over-the-top Hollywood – Vanity Fair’s book “Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties” (Knopf, $75).
Tutera is no stranger to the party bags – he made gift baskets for the acting and directing Oscar nominees this year. Some of the items included a red digital camera and gold clutch bag for the women, and an iPod nano and cuff links for the men. We just had to ask about the reaction. Tutera says: “Felicity Huffman flipped over it – she loved it.”
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(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.
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