Fancy dressing up for a party?

A few years ago, I had a very successful party. It was successful because it was not just the adults that had a great time it was also the teenagers. I think it is fairly rare to find a party where both adults and teenagers can say they had a really good time. I attribute a large portion of that success to the fact that it was a dress up party. I like sci-fi, so of course the theme was sci-fi. You could come as any science-fiction character you wanted, but you had to come dressed up. I think the reason it was so successful is because dressing up breaks down barriers that would otherwise be there. It gives people many talking points such as "I like your costume", "and who do you think I am meant to be?".

We also decorated the lounge to match the theme with large cutouts of aliens, cyborgs, planets, spaceships etc. We put colourful flashing LEDs in tall glasses filled with water and cellophane to create unique lighting that went with the sci-fi theme. People came as aliens with head bopper Alice bands and tinsel wigs, Neo and Trinity from the matrix, Star Trek characters such as Spock, the fifth element, Princess Leah and many others.

There are an infinite number of fancy dress themes that you can choose from that you are limited only by your imagination. You can have a dress up theme from super heroes to characters from history, book titles, cartoon characters, nationalities, proverbs etc.
When hosting a fancy dress party it is a good idea to have a few simple, but non-threatening outfits that you can lend to guests who arrive without a costume.

So next time you are thinking of hosting a party and think that fancy dress is "so last year", well think again. The party I have been talking about is my 50th birthday party. My nephew, who was 17 at the time, couldn't stop raving at how great a party it was, and when he attended another party for a 50-year-old he was sadly disappointed!