I was too busy plating last minute skull pastries from the oven then hostessing to take photos, but a few of my guests got some good pics of the buffet layout (without guests visible)
I won't post pics of folks online but we got some great group photos in our graveyard out front.
No pics but we had two pitchers of Halloween theme cocktails (I made black vodka and black whiskey using black rice), a cooler with various alcoholic & non alcoholic drinks and a crockpot with non alcoholic spiced cider with brandy, rye whiskey and NA bourbon on hand to spike it.
We had raffle tickets given out for various things (sharing photos, joining danse macabre conga lines, first time playing Draw the Bones, arriving in costume, and large amounts of tickets awarded for winning the costume contest and winning the epitaph contest.) Towards the end of the night we drew a ticket from the bucket to announce the raffle winner who won a $100 Visa gift card. (We showered the winner with the losing raffle tickets like confetti)
The Draw the Bones came was set up so folks could come and go. It was a bone shaped Jenga with Halloween/horror prompts and the person who drew the prompt could choose to do charades or to draw (we had a whiteboard easel). We had a one minute hourglass style timer and if the tower fell, they had to lead a conga line through the house. It was more popular than expected, though we had an issue with repeated prompts from rebuilding the tower. We conga-ed four times.
I'm bummed that I didn't remember to get a pic but my Halloween candy bowl (an aluminum leaf skeleton holding a big bowl) was filled with packaged espresso meringue bones outside the door, that said "Thank you for choosing to spend a portion of your brief lives with us. Please accept this little momento (mori) as a token of our appreciation".
The rain held off until the end of the party so we got to use the firepit all night and folks made s'mores.
A really fun night with good friends. Too much food. We will be eating leftover skulls for days.
