How To Throw a Valentine’s Day Tea Party

Every Valentine’s Day I throw a tea party for the women in my family + the young guys. The tradition started when my mom was first diagnosed with ALS. I wanted to find a way to add more fun and variety to her life since she could no longer do most of her favorite activities. I started decorating the house and creating activities for each season/holiday. Since my mom loves teapots and tea and I love Valentine’s Day, this one was an extra special event. Even as my mom’s disease continued to progress, I continued to throw the party and had to get creative with activities she could still participate in. Now that my mom is no longer with us, it’s one of the few traditions that I’ve continued. Even though I had just moved into our new home just two days prior, I still had my tea party this year.

This tradition is near and dear to my heart for so many reasons, but it’s also just a really fun time and a great way to celebrate with your loved ones. I truly believe Valentine’s Day should be about celebrating all the love in your life and not just the romantic love. Here’s how I put together my Valentine’s Day Tea Party this year. Hopefully it’ll inspire you to throw one of your own!

My family isn’t really big on traditional tea party food. For that reason, I went light on the tea sandwiches and made a variety of other foods. You can make anything you please for tea parties; there’s no such thing as “tea party” food, at least in my opinion. I’ve found the trick is to serve it up in small portions and in tea serve ware to be on theme. Here’s what I made:

Tea Sandwiches:

Fancied up by cutting into heart shapes with heart cookie cutters and served on a teacup tier. Here are the two varieties I made, but let your favorite tastes and imagination be your source of inspiration!

• Brie, apple slices, and a drizzle of honey on whole wheat sourdough
• Almond butter and grapefruit preserves on whole wheat sourdough
• Cucumber and labneh {a middle eastern thick yogurt} on whole wheat sourdough

Lena & Bassam’s Favorite Salad

This is a salad that I made up and that Bassam loves. We make it pretty regularly. There’s nothing quintessentially tea party about it, besides that I served it in teacups! Here’s what goes in my salad, but feel free to modify based on your own tastes!

Romaine lettuce                                        

Dates

Fuji apples                                                

Cucumbers

Heirloom tomatoes                                

Avocado

Walnuts {candied is extra yummy, but either way is fine!}

Blue cheese (top with after the salad is dressed)

For the dressing: walnut oil, balsamic vinegar, squeeze of balsamic glaze, bit of fresh squeezed lemon juice, salt & pepper

Mini Savory Tarts

I guess there are not really tarts, but I don’t know what else to call them. These are one of my favorite party mini bites to make because they are always super popular, but very easy to make. I start with store bought biscuit dough, the kind you just pop out and bake. You can also use phyllo dough, but I like the way the biscuit dough comes out. I roll out the dough so it’s no longer in biscuit shape then use cookie cutters to make whatever shape I’m going for, in this case, hearts. Keep in mind, they will puff up a bit since it is biscuit dough, so don’t worry about these shapes looking too perfect. Before baking, you can top with whatever you like! Here were the two variations I did:

• Brushed with olive oil and topped with Zaatar {A Middle Eastern spice blend} and feta cheese
• Spread with tomato paste and topped with shredded pepper jack cheese and finely chopped olives

Butternut Squash Pasta “Cupcakes”

I had lots of leftover butternut squash sauce to use, so I made these “cupcakes”. You can find the sauce seasonally at Trader Joe’s, or make your own by pureeing cooked butternut squash with garlic, salt & pepper. You may want to thin it out a bit with some water. Easy, right?

For the cupcakes, cook your pasta super al dente, because it’ll be going in the oven. I used quinoa fusilli, but you can use whatever you like. Mix with the sauce, pour into cupcake liners, top with pepper jack cheese, and bake for just a few minutes. You’ll get best results if you use silicone cupcakes liners, the paper ones get very soggy.

Lemon Cupcakes

I’m not the best baker because I hate following recipes. True to form, I looked up a bunch of recipes and meshed them all together until I got something I wanted. You can find lots of cupcake recipes online, but basically the modifications I made were to use all purpose flour, less butter, and more fresh squeezed lemon juice and zest than was called for. I was happy with my results, but I did want a more lemony dessert.

Once the batter was created, I baked the cupcakes in cup and saucer cupcake molds.

Lemon Bars, Macarons, and Berries

What’s a tea party without lots of mini desserts? Maybe one day I’ll make my own lemon bars and macrons, but for now, I buy them from Trader Joe’s and they are always a hit! I served the mini desserts on teacup tiers and the berries in sugar and creamer pots.

Cheese board

I always create a cheese board, no matter what the occasion. Here’s what I like to include on mine, but the beauty of a cheese board is how limitless you can be with your creativity:

• Toscano pepper cheese
• Cheese soaked in Syrah
• Manchego
• Sharp white chedder
• Crackers {I love pistachio pomegranate and gorgonzola}
• Marcona almonds
• Fruit paste {I love Guava}
• Lots and lots of grapes

Cookie Ramekins

This dessert was inspired by the Pizookie at BJs. It’s insanely easy to make. Just fill a pretty ramekin with chocolate chip cookie dough {I used the premade kind} and bake! Easy peasy and delicious! This was probably the favorite dessert at the party!

Don’t forget about the tea!

I served two different kinds of tea: a spicy option and a fruity option. I also had champagne available for the non-tea lovers. Instead of the usual sugar and honey offerings, I filled the top tier of my teacup tiers with rose flavored sugar cubes. The sugar cubes gave a very pretty look to the table and added an extra special something to the tea. They were also really fun to drop into a glass of champagne! I doubt I’ll go back to using regular sugar cubes after discovering these.

I also added droplets of Pure Love flower essences from the Flower Apothecary to the tea. This was my way of helping my loved ones experience love and be open to love during this special time of the year. If you don’t know much about flower essences, I highly recommend checking out this website!

I can never get enough Valentine’s décor and I typically go overboard with decorations, but this year I kept mine super simple since we had just moved. I kept the main focus on the tablescape and laid out tons of tea party accessories to serve the food in. I used teacups, sugar bowls, creamer pots, and teapots as my serve ware. While this made for lots and lots of dishes to wash later, I was really happy with how the look came out.

One of my absolute favorite pieces on my tablescape were these tiers made from vintage tea plates, teacups, and a creamer pot. They added a vintage and pretty look to my table and I feel the pieces really brought the Valentine’s Tea Party look together.

I also used little pink and gold glitter heart picks in everything, from my cheese plate to the cupcakes.

Red roses styled in a teapot and a pitcher completed the look.

I love including games and activities into any type of party. I find that it brings a fun and lively energy to a party and makes it more memorable. Here are the games I usually play at my Valentine’s party:

I love you because…

I usually have everyone go around and say what they love about each person. It’s a very sweet and mushy game- perfect for Valentine’s Day! This year I decided to turn this game into a keepsake project. I passed around heart shaped notebooks and everyone decorated theirs with their name, designs, and stickers. Then we passed around the books and we each wrote brief messages to each other of things we love about each person. This spin on the game was a bit hit!

Valentine’s Family Feud

This game started because of how much my mom loves Family Feud. I split everyone into two teams and we play a variation of the popular guessing game. I found a list of questions and answers here and found an easy PPT template to create the game here. This one gets very competitive and very fun!

Other ideas include:

• Create your own conversation heart
• Pin the arrow on cupid {blow up a photo of cupid and print out. Print out multiple arrows}
• Valentine’s charades {create a list of love themed books, gifts, movies, etc

Party favors aren’t mandatory, but having a little something to take home is always nice. I filled these adorable bags with the Pure Love flower essences I used in the tea. Plus everyone took home the heart notebooks we had filled out.

I’ve linked up most of things I used, except for what is no longer in stores. Finding all the cute little details is always part of the fun for me when planning a party and I was really happy with what I found for this year’s event.

Teacup and creamer pot tiers: Etsy shop

Party favor bags: Etsy shop

Rose petal sugar cubes: Etsy shop

Pure Love flower essences: The Flower Apothecary

Pink and gold glitter picks: Etsy shop

Disclosure: I received some of the items featured as a gift in exchange for including them in my blog post. As always, I only ever feature products to you that I love and I think you will like.