back to the future party

Another year, another birthday! Here’s a little recap of my birthday party this year which was a Back to the Future party. My party was on October 24th just a few days after the 30th anniversary (October 21st, 2015) and it seemed too good to pass it up as a theme. Here are some of the highlights of my decorations and food at the Back to the Future party:

Entrance | Back to the Future Party

I made this “fire tire” trail out of construction paper (which I cut to look a little bit like lightening bolts) and then glued red and gold shiny streamers on top for the “fire”. Guests would enter through the shiny blue curtain to head “back to the past” of the party.

Fire Tire Trail | Back to the Future Party

I put the “OUTATIME” license plate in the middle of the trail just like in the movie. I got the bags of shiny streamers and construction paper at the Dollar Tree for a buck each.

Party Canvas | Back to the Future Party

I got this canvas (which had a tiny hole in it) for $2 at Big Lots. I taped a print out of the Back to the Future logo plus a flyer for “Marvin Berry and the Starlighters” (which is the band that played at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance at the high school prom in 1955) to the canvas as a little hint to what lay beyond the blue curtain. 

Pool

The clubhouse is a really cool space with part of the pool coming inside the clubhouse area. 


Save the Clock Tower | Back to the Future Party

Party Props | Back to the Future Party

I set up a little table with some Back to the Future stuff. I made the “Save the Clock Tower” can out of an old cashews tin and printed out a few of the flyers. The little stuffed doggie is also wearing a “Save the Clock Tower” pin. The little lanterns are those plug-in lights you stick into your outlet – Jake saw them at the Dollar Tree. I bought the Delorean off Amazon and used some string to simulate the famous lightening bolt scene from the first movie.

On the right there is my Doc Brown Funko Pop toy where he is holding the two converters together and gets electrified while the lightening strikes the clock tower plus the drawing of the flux capacitor. 

The pins were gifts for my guests featuring different logos from the movie (Pepsi Perfect, Hoverboard, etc.)

dressed-up

The general theme was “Enchantment Under the Sea”. It took me awhile to make that darn banner as my pens kept running out of ink! T put up all of the streamers for us. Above is “Marty” and “Jennifer”. 

mary-80s-laura

It was way too warm to wear a jean jacket and that puffy vest so I quickly shed it. Laura came by a little later in her 80’s gear. 

Biff Tannen | Back to the Future Party

Jake was dressed up as Biff Tannen from the alternate 1985 when Biff had struck it rich by betting on the ponies with the Grey’s Sports Almanac. 

Food | Back to the Future Party

The food table was dressed up with the Enchantment Under the Sea theme. 

taco-fixings

Peanut Brittle for George McFly plus fixings for making carne asada or carnitas tacos. The tacos were catered from Carnitas las Michoacanas. We got 4 lbs of carnitas, 2 lbs of carne asada, rice, beans, tortillas, limes, pickled veggies, and salsas.  

party-foods

The carnitas are in the tray with the tortillas on top. 

Pizza Hut Cookies | Back to the Future Party

These “Pizza Hut” cookies are representative of the Pizza Hut that grandma Lorriane brings over in Back to the Future II. She takes a tiny little pizza and puts it into the “hydrator” to make a full sized pizza – half pepperoni, half green peppers. See an image of that here!

I made little bowls of sand and seashells with candles plus put seashells all over the table with skateboards around the edges. Plus a tiny hoverboard! 

corn-salad

This is a corn salad I made with honey lime dressing, cucumbers, tomatoes, and chunks of avocado.

mushroom-salad

This is supposed to be a mushroom quinoa salad but it didn’t turn out quite right and looks hella unappealing. Back to the drawing board on that one! 

lights-and-chili-station

This was sort of the chili/margarita station. Frank whipped up some of his really delicious chili for the party.

franks-chili

Mmm, chili. 

dr-browns-soda

And we had Dr. Brown’s soda that we got from BevMo. 

margaritas

And Stacey made margaritas. 

movie-corner

And over in the corner we had a movie watching area showing the whole trilogy (plus I made a playlist of 50’s and 80’s music to play in the background). 

uncle-joey-back-to-the-future-cake

For my birthday cake I made the “Welcome Home Uncle Joey” cake that Lorriane makes. Sadly Uncle Joey didn’t make parole again and they would have to eat the cake themselves

donut-bags

That’s it for my party recap! On another amusing note: two different people came with donut gift bags! This amused me to no end. 


10 thoughts on “back to the future party

  1. I’m so bummed I didn’t make it! The length and effort you take to put on a party never ceases to amaze me. You are so ride or die 🙂 The food looks great – but yeah the quinoa mushroom thing looks scary. What’s the rim covered with on the margarita?

    1. I’m bummed you didn’t make it either, but it’s okay! I like doing all the little details for the party 🙂 The margaritas have a salty – herb on the rim, it’s the salt we got from the Patron event over the summer! It was pretty yummy with the margaritas.

  2. You throw a great party! I really liked the tacos with the catered meat and your corn salad all together. YUM. And delicious homemade cake. You need another cool gift bag in threes for next year!

  3. Love the location( it was a dual precinct a few years ago for Registrar of Voters (When I was a Field Coordinator). Great food at Michoacanas always. Wonderful details for this party…each year is more interesting than the previous..happy birthday!

    1. Thank you, Cathy! Interesting to know what was over in that area before! Michoacanas is really good, some of the best carnitas I’ve tried!

      1. Clarifying, the lobby of that complex was used for polling, like garages are used in other parts of town. The Registrars office uses all sorts of locations…schools, fire stations, garages. There was even a precinct inside a funeral home one year and inside a Smog shop at another time. The Mister and I have been Troubleshooting for ROV since 2000 and still haven’t seen it all. Anyhow, I know what I want for lunch today…

  4. The food and company was great! I especially enjoyed the carnitas (OMG, I had about 3 tacos) and the corn salad. TC enjoyed the cookies as well. Awesome attention to detail – you are the QUEEN of theme parties Mary! Your costumes were cool too (Jake as well as T).

    Ha ha, I was surprised to see another donut bag there! I thought mine was the only one 🙂

    1. Yay, thanks CC! Glad all three of you could make it! One of my co workers came late and also had the donut bag, haha. I can’t remember if you were there for that or not. You’ll have to go visit the actual restaurant sometime, it’s so good!

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