[dane82]

For the second straight year, our Halloween party was a success. There were a couple fewer people this year, but everyone stayed for most of the night, and despite the fact that this year's party had fewer people and more room (we opened up the garage this year), 2013 actually seemed more full than last year.

As with anything else, we're learning as we go--we now have another year of seeing what works and what doesn't. The black light garage was a big hit and well worth the effort that went into it. We gave ourselves more time to decorate, get food, etc., but we were still right up to the wire. We could have used another few hours to feel comfortable with getting everything ready in time.

Once again, the vast majority of the "maybes" didn't show up, but fortunately all the "yeses" were there. There weren't any last minute cancellations as there tend to sometimes be. I'd rather have 10 people who want to be there, show up (roughly) on time and stay most of the night than 45 people who pop in just to make an appearance and don't do much while there.

And now, pictures. (And videos!)

A group shot from early in the night:



Me:



Our friend Jeff as Rocky (or as he told people throughout the night, Apollo Creed) with my girlfriend's dog Jake:



My cousin Ellen and her husband Ben as the villains from the movie "The Rescuers":



Ooeeoo, my friend Chad looks just like Buddy Holly:



My girlfriend Nikole as a peacock on the left and her friend Mary Ellen as a fairy on the right:



Me and Veronica Corningstone glowed in the black light garage:



And speaking of Ms. Corningstone, here's Ron Burgundy with "What Does the Fox Say":



More to come...

 

[dane82]

Tattoo from Fantasy Island and Sloth from The Goonies:



Hanging on the back porch:



And the video tour--my apologies for the bad Elvis throughout the entire thing. I commit to the character all night long:

Note: what I missed at the beginning here was Mary Ellen saying "I'm a fairy":

 

[Paint It Black]

Congrats. Looks like fun and some great costumes! Your video tour was pretty funny too.

 

[Jenn&MattFromPA]

Ha ha - I especially love the Sloth costume! Glad you had a good turnout & had fun. I agree - much more fun to have less people who want to stick around rather than a bunch of drop-ins who eat your food and then run! I always try to take some notes after a party on what to tweak for next time too!

 

[dane82]

Ha ha - I especially love the Sloth costume! Glad you had a good turnout & had fun. I agree - much more fun to have less people who want to stick around rather than a bunch of drop-ins who eat your food and then run! I always try to take some notes after a party on what to tweak for next time too!

yeah, we keep a google spreadsheet of notes and ideas for the next year's party, because we're huge dorks.

 

[Forum User]

Looks like it was a great time!

 

[Edward]

We had our party on Saturday night the 26th. This was by far the biggest and best yet for us. Over 100 guests showed up out of 140 invitations for this year's event, and everyone upped their game again this year with some fabulous costumes. Everyone also loved the new venue we rented this year (a 100+ year old factory building). Already thinking about next year, if you can believe that. I would post some pictures, but having trouble getting them to download to the sight.

 

[dane82]

We had our party on Saturday night the 26th. This was by far the biggest and best yet for us. Over 100 guests showed up out of 140 invitations for this year's event, and everyone upped their game again this year with some fabulous costumes. Everyone also loved the new venue we rented this year (a 100+ year old factory building). Already thinking about next year, if you can believe that. I would post some pictures, but having trouble getting them to download to the sight.

i honestly don't know how you pull something like that off. we don't have enough room for that many people, nor the money to put toward renting a space big enough for that many people, and honestly i'm not sure that we know that many people even if we had room. we had somewhere between 15-20 on saturday night (i'd have to look at the list to know for sure) and for most of the night the house seemed "full"--not crowded, but it felt like there was a good crowd there.

in the future, far enough down the road that we're married and in a bigger place, we'd like to shoot for a somewhat larger crowd, but i think i'd go nuts with 50, much less 100.

 

[Edward]

It does take some time to get it all together, (we start in June) but we truly enjoy doing it for all of our friends and they seem to look forward to it each year All things considered we plan to continue putting our party on. I'm sure you could handle it when your party grows to 50 or maybe even 100 when word gets out that your party is a blast! Best of luck to you in the future!

 

[dane82]

thanks! i suspect that 50 would be on the high end of what we'd ever want to do. both from a space perspective and a "knowing enough people" perspective, that honestly seems like the pinnacle. but who knows...we'll see where we are in a few years. we may surprise ourselves.

 

[Bethany]

We did our garage in blacklights every year up north. Will do the same in the new house.
Hanging fabric that is blacklight reactive give more "light" to the room. I also had a cabinet of curiosities in there that had lots of glowing stuff & a blacklight.


cannot wait for 2014 - been 2 years without being able to decorate.

 

[dane82]

We did our garage in blacklights every year up north. Will do the same in the new house.
Hanging fabric that is blacklight reactive give more "light" to the room. I also had a cabinet of curiosities in there that had lots of glowing stuff & a blacklight.
View attachment 182718 View attachment 182719

cannot wait for 2014 - been 2 years without being able to decorate.

how many lights would you suggest for a standard 2-car garage? we had an 18" tube light and a CFL bulb, and it wasn't as dark as the picture of me and veronica up there makes it seem, but we could have definitely used a little more light.

 

[Bethany]

Our garage in Ohio was a deep 2 car? We had 4 - 4 ' shop light fixtures that held 2 - 4' Flourescent Black lights each. The pic above was the first year we had all 4 fixtures. Husband actually hung me sepearate fixtures & wired to a sep. switch so I didn't have to keep climbing up & down the ladder each year to change bulbs. We'll do the same in at our new house, only it is a 3 car garage! YAY more room to party!!
2 - 4' fixtures weren't bad, but I really wanted the glow!! Also didn't want people falling in the darkness.

 

[dane82]

i'm inclined to believe that if i double my black light setup i'd have enough light--one tube and a CFL did pretty good, i'd just like it a little brighter (the steps leading from the garage up into the house worried me, even though there are only 2 steps). the tube was on one side and the CFL on the other side, overhead. i think adding a CFL to the other side overhead near the tube, and adding another tube on the side near the CFL, would probably do the trick, but i guess there's no way to know other than to try and see.

do you use any kind of black light paint or just reactive material? if the "invisible paint" works well, i'd like to paint a small strip on each step so that most of the year it looks no different, but it highlights the steps with the black light on.

 

[Bethany]

I used a purple rope light one year for our step. Don't think the new house will be an issue, but may do flourescent chalk or watercolors if we have a step.

I just used fabric. Always checked the cheap stuff at Joann's & Walmart. I got 6 yards of flourescent orange & yellow stripes at a thrift store a few weeks ago.
The more "reactive" stuff I had the more light there was. I also had a candle or 2 on each table. Table cloths were reactive too - got lucky there!

 

[dane82]

a rope light would be perfect for the steps. good thinkin'.

 

[dbruner]

Congrats on a great party. I had my party saturday night too and by all accounts it was a good one. I had a couple of no shows but most people stayed the whole night. Instead of scary movies people watched a hockey game, we did watch the original Halloween after the game was over. I had too much food and beer again but better too much than too little! Now we can all relax and enjoy the holiday!

 

[Edward]

Congratulations to you as well! My wife and I plan to attend some of the public Halloween parties being held this Friday & Saturday. Since we weren't able to be in our own costume contest we thought we would enter some of the public ones. We'll post our results after this weekend. Hope you have a great Halloween!!