Austin and I both love the Harry Potter series so much, we had a golden snitch on our wedding cake and spent our honeymoon at the Universal Studios Wizarding World theme park.
I’ve always wanted to throw an epic Harry Potter party and go all out with elaborate decorations, but imagined that I would have to wait until we could buy a house. This year, I decided that 2020 needed a little bit of extra magic and there was no reason to wait to do something special. So I set to work transforming our little apartment into Hogwarts castle and cooked up a few of our favorite treats. Here’s how we celebrated Halloween like a couple of wizards.
Hogwarts Letter Party Invitations
We started off by sending our friends personalized Hogwarts letters as invitations. I took the text used in the letter from the books and customized it to offer details about our party. Guests were informed of the start date of a new Hogwarts term, what time dinner would be served in The Great Hall, and the deadline to send their reply by owl. I also included a list of equipment students should bring with them to school, just like in the books. This included their robes, their wands, and plenty of imagination.
For a tutorial on how to create your own Hogwarts letter invitations, click here.
Harry Potter Halloween Party Decorations
When our guests arrived, I wanted them to be wow-ed the minute they walked through the door. I set up our entryway table with Hogwarts portraits and suspended floating candles above our island dining table for maximum Hogwarts impact. I used table runners crafted out of beautiful Harry Potter fabric (Thanks, Mom!) and fresh flower arrangements (Thanks, Mother-in-Law!) to accent all of the themed decorations.
I placed homemade Hogwarts class textbooks, broomsticks, owls, pumpkins, and other odds and ends around my apartment. I trapped some pixies inside a pair of glass lanterns. I set up a potions classroom in the kitchen that doubled as the bar for the evening.
Here’s a guide to decorating for your own Harry Potter Party.
Here’s a tutorial for crafting your own Hogwarts textbooks.
Here’s a tutorial for brewing your own spooky potions.
Harry Potter Themed Food
On the dining table, I set up a charcuterie board overflowing with goodies to give the effect of a welcome back to school feast. I also laid out two different types of Pumpkin Pasties: sweet, and savory. For our main course I served my favorite pumpkin walnut chili inside bowls shaped like pumpkins. And to drink I filled up our goblets with Polyjuice Potion, then refilled them with Butterbeer for desert.
Here’s a guide to food you can serve at a Harry Potter Halloween Party.
Here is my recipe for Pumpkin Walnut Chili.
Here is my recipe for Pumpkin Pasties.
Here is my recipe for Butterbeer.
Hogwarts Class in Session
We held “class” by playing some themed games after dinner. We fought off our boggarts in Defense Against the Dark Arts, learned how to brew the draught of love, Amortentia in Potions, tested our wits in History of Magic, decoded some Ancient Runes, and cuddled with Pygmy Puffs in Care of Magical Creatures. (Ok the last one was just petting my two fluffy dogs.)
You can read all about Hogwarts game ideas here.
Magical Memories
We had an absolutely wicked evening (as Ron would say) laughing and eating with our best friends. We were so thankful they appreciated our attention to detail at the party and that they were willing to fully commit to the theme with us. Our friend Spencer is such a big Harry Potter fan, he has his own blog where he writes about fan theories, chapter analyses, and fun recipes. You can check out his blog, Order of Merlin: Muggle Class here.
I’m pretty exhausted from all the planning, crafting, decorating, and cooking in the weeks leading up to this party, but I would definitely do it all over again. In fact, we might just have to make this an annual Halloween tradition! Until next year, mischief managed.
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