SORRY I'M LATE... BUT...

Sorry I'm late for the party... But I just came from...

In the summer 2017, I organized a summer party with a colleague for our other colleagues. 

The theme was: "Sorry, I'm late ... But I just came from..."

Name of the party/theme for the party

"Sorry, I'm late ... But I just came from ...".

Number of guests/who were invited

15 people/work colleagues.

Activities

The guests should of course come a little late (we invited them at 17.30 and wrote that late arrival was expected, but no later than at 17.45...). When the guests came, they excused themselves and told why they were late/where they came from.

The guests were creative and had found all sorts of delays and brought supplies that showed where they came from. Some came from a delayed travel, others came from trying to find a horse that had ran away. But the most fun entrance of them all was probably our former colleague who just quit her work with us and was not invited to the party until one day before it was... She had announced that she might come, but was not sure if she would make it.... After the party had started, she stumbled in with one shoe, dirt on her arms, sticks and leaves in her hair and in her clothes, tousled hair and a barrier tape (as she had made herself!) with the text "Members Only, Keep Out!". And the letters was also in the right direction (!) like she had ran into it. She came in to the room breathed and said, "Sorry, I´m late..., but I was not invited ...!". I love her attitude and she really went all-in. She really "crashed" the party. I can start laughing now and then when I think about it. Everyone at the party was so surprised.

When the guests came, they mingled and got the task to try to divide into groups with others (which became teams later) who had a common denominator with them about their excuse for why they were late. Together they had to write a common excuse for why they were late for the party. Many lovely apologies/excuses that were told.

They also found out a team name and decided which one who should be the team leader. The teams also got tasks during the evening. Among other things, they would challenge the other teams in any competition. When alarm clocks rang (we had decorated the party with lots of watches/alarm clocks and set them to call at different times) the team that got up first and apologized for being late got extra points. They would also take a group photo on the team and send to me. We also had some other games. One of them were a mandatory activity, that is an insect race, where they compete with any insect on a runway (I´m going to tell you more about that in another post. It´s a mandatory activity at my summer parties... ;-)). We also had a quiz and a competition where the team would go to a certain location within as precise time as possible (without having access to watches) and a game where they would put the right city together with the right time.

Food and beverages

We had made a summer buffet with gazpacho for an appetizer, and at the buffet there was bread with sun-dried tomatoes, salad, pasta salad (with ruccola, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, red onion, black olives and mustard vinegar), marinated chilled chicken, pickled salmon, pies (which some guests brought with them) and for dessert we had made rhubarb pie with vanilla whip.

The guest brought the beverages they wanted to drink, but we served a welcome drink - a sangria including strawberries for the summer touch.

Details

We decorated the party with alarm watches, watches and laminated quotes about "time". We also had different laminated quotes about "time" in several places in the house.

The fun part was that all guests had thought about what excuse they would have and brought different details from the excuse to make it "real". It also made the details for the party.