14264

MTV Sweet 16 Dance Party

September 2006

Regina in Bainbridge Ohio USA

Honorable Mention

I have been planning my daughter Kelley's sweet sixteen for several months and the party date is almost here.  IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A GREAT PARTY YOU DON’T HAVE TO SPEND A FORTUNE, ALL MY EXPENSES COMES TO ABOUT $220 INCLUDING THE TENT RENTAL (not counting her gift). 

She loves to watch the MTV sweet 16 so I tried to recreate an inexpensive version.  I rented an enclosed tent that her dad and I will set up ourselves that will fit about 20 - 30 people with chairs and such. I didn’t want the cost of a DJ so my daughter and I made some  party cd's with all the recent music and some old typical party music (AC/DC,  Chicken dance and such!). I am taking her stereo outside and we have a microphone with it to make annoucements with . The party doesn’t really have a theme but we made the invitations on the computer, They have a really nice picture of her on them and it says come dance the night away with Kelley! We bought some really nice specialty paper at the local office supply store.  We used the copy machine there to print the invitations.

Her color for the party is red. Her fave color. The tent is red and white and her dad is going to build a dance floor out of scrap lumber, (he is a carpenter)and we are going to paint it red. She has a disco ball to put over the dance floor and we borrowed as many black lights as we could to put all over the tent. I also have red flood lights to use if needed. At the entrance of the tent I have decorated our outside garden arch it has white lights already on it and I used some red toole from the fabric store to fancy it up and shade the lights red. I will arrange the chairs around the walls of the tent to keep the "floor" open for mingling. 

Not far from the tent in our yard we have a fire ring and we will light a small bon fire and we have some seating out there as well. I have a special chair for my daughter "The princess chair" and at some point we  will present her with a tiara and a sash that I made that says sweet sixteen on it in glitter. I also made her a special t- shirt that says Kelleys Sweet Sixteen and the date on it. Then we will have everyone at the party sign it with sharpies. She can keep it as a souviner.

I have photos of her and her friends I will decorate the tent walls with And I also used a old white bed sheet cut in half lenghtwise and painted Happy Sweet 16 Kelley on it in red and used silver glitter to use as a banner across the tent, it should look really cool with the black lights. We have red table cloths and red plastic ware and paper products. Lots of red ballons and  There will be disposable cameras though out the tent and we will also be using a digital camera to take pictures of each guest with Kelley and I bought up xtra picture paper so we can print each of them a copy of their picture to take with them. Right now the garden stores have the fall mums available I bought several pots of red mums to decorate the tent and the entrance with .I can use the mums for the rest of my fall decorating.

As for the food; of course plenty of chips and sodas but also some assorted cheese balls and dips, homemade cookies and a mini taco bar. I have a special melody of songs made up for her to make her entrance. She will come out of the house after most of the guests arrive I am using songs like 16 CANDLES, SWEET 16,YOU SAY ITS YOUR BITHDAY  and then Pinks song LETS GET THIS PARTY STARTED. It’s a casual dress  but my daughter saved an xtra special back-to-school outfit that no one has seen her wear yet. We have some competition on the night of her party because one of her class mates is having her sweet 16 the same night as Kelleys' party, although the times are not the same (ours is later). We are excited to see the results of all the planning and hopefully we have enticed the kids to come to her party!!

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