I love a good tea party, but sometimes sitting around eating overpriced sandwiches and leaf water gets a little stale. Here are some fun (and possibly off-the-wall) activities and tea party themes I’ve brainstormed for your future meetup.
1.) Spill The Tea Party: a Pride themed tea party
It’s no secret that much of the lolita community is composed of LGBTQ+ members. Skip a hot and sweaty summer parade for a colorful tea party in the cool indoors. Try making that rainbow layered cake you’ve saved on your Pinterest for months. Make a batch of confetti scones and rainbow sorbet punch. Sprinkle rainbow colored confetti on your table cloth and brew some glittery tea with rainbow sugar crystals on the side.
For activities, set up a colorful photo booth with Pride flags for members to take photos with and encourage members to wear colorful coords. Prepare colorful yarn or beads and string to make Pride themed friendship bracelets together.
2.) Victorian Seance
Spiritualism was a big part of the Victorian period and many lolitas love olden times and the macabre. For your next Halloween meetup, get together for some good old fashion spoopy times. Play around with a Oujia board or do an Oracle or Tarot card reading (whether done by a professional fortune teller or with your own deck - by the way, Jane Austen decks exist!). Extra spook points if you do these activities at a Goth picnic in the cemetery. For a very lolita appropriate flare, give tasseomancy a try.
Wandering Spirit Tarot Deck by Haenuli
3.) Brand Mascot Party
Got a jumbo usakumya that doesn’t get out much? Time to bring it to a mascot themed meetup! But this meetup isn’t just limited to Usakumyas and Kumakumyas. Encourage guests to bring and/or wear prints of whatever lolita brand animal mascot that ever existed to the party - whether it’s Captain Chris, Judy-Sophie-and-Lillian, or Milk-chan or Lyrical Bunny or Punkuma! This is also a furtastic time to wear animal ears or prints and head to the zoo.
Source: Liemzie
4.) A Mid-20th Century Affair
Honestly, I’m not sure what to call it, but basically you and your friends get together for a 1950s inspired meetup. Wear vintage inspired coords featuring polkadots and poodles, learn to play Bridge, and try some vintage cocktails (or mocktails) with some questionable Betty Crocker recipes from our grandmother’s time. But if you can’t stomach Jell-o Tuna Salad, you might want to prepare some of Hollywood’s Golden era cake recipes to drown out the taste.
5.) Bakery Crawl
If you live in an area with a lot of bakeries and pastry shops, plan to hit as many as you can with your community, and encourage guests to wear prints with dessert themes.
6.) Host a Murder Mystery Game
Murder Mystery events are pretty popular among the historical reinactment crowd. However, if a three-course dinner with a bunch of strangers sounds unappealing to you and your community, host a murder mystery tea party instead. And instead of the usual themes like the Roaring 20s, you can make your own storyline that’s more lolita friendly - for example, it can be 18th century themed and people can dress in their finest OTT Rococo inspired coords or just a lolita one where evidence can be lolita related (like death by parasol or smothered by jumbo Usakumya- get creative!). Guests can prepare their own characters ahead of time or you can prepare it for them. If making up a story on your own seems daunting, you can purchase pre-made murder mystery kits online.
7.) College Party
Here’s one of my more far-fetched ideas: a college party meetup minus the bros
Hear me out: imagine getting together with a bunch of lolitas at a house to play beer pong, social drinking games, and stuffing a bunch of petticoated people in a tiny kitchen to gossip over drinks. If anyone ever decides to do this, be sure to set up safety measures like ID-ing people, limiting alcoholic drinks to what’s provided, preparing plenty of snacks (or potluck!), and preparing safe rides home or sleeping space (if you’re extra cautious, you can set up a small security deposit for things like brand or house damage - but hopefully it’ll be more cozy than wild).
For a more age-inclusive meetup, non-alcoholic drinks can be served instead (think fancy bottled sodas). If you want to make this meet more lolita than normie-centric, use lolita themes in the drinking games, and tea cups instead of solo cups for beer pong. You can also arrange a scavenger hunt and split your guests into groups of two with fake Greek house names like Usakumya Phi and Baby Sigma Psi.
8.) Tabletop Role Playing Meet
And yes, I mean Dungeons and Dragons, but don’t feel like you have to limit your characters to dwarves and elves. Curate a more kawaii version of classic tabletop games like using magical girls instead of the usual paladins and bards. Just be sure to leave plenty of time for you and your guests to prepare their characters before the meetup. If fighting evil by moonlight isn’t your idea of fun, consider purchasing Good Society, a Jane Austen inspired roleplaying game full of intrigue and scandal. For a comfy card game, look into playing The Tea Dragon Society.
DnD Dice by Forbidden Snacky
9.) Royal Court Theme
Have an OTT Royalty themed meetup where everyone is encouraged to dress up in their most opulent. I’m talking crowns, scepters, capes, sashes, and floofy bell-shaped sleeves! For fun and games, bring out Pretty Pretty Princess or Settlers of Catan, or explore your local tabletop gaming shop for similar fantasy-kingdom inspired games.
OPULEEEENCE! YOU OWN EVERYTHING!
(Image from Pose)
10.) Celebrate an Unusual Holiday
Did you know that there’s a National Handmade Cookie Day? Sounds like a day for the perfect baking meet! If you love Honey Cake, wear it out for a brunch meet on National Pancake Day. Support your local donut shop while wearing Melty Cream Donuts on National Donut Day, or bust out Diner Doll at the diner on National Vanilla Milkshake Day! If you can’t do a Halloween meet, October 29th is National Cat Day. Encourage everyone to wear a cat print and support your local cat cafe. There’s no shortage of ideas of what you can do!
That’s all for now for my list of meetup themes and ideas. Let me know if you’ve tried any of these ideas and how it went, or if you have any other great ideas for fun meets!
Thanks for reading!
Mocha
