The Speak Easy Party

The year is 1925 and prohibition is in full swing.  It is Saturday night, you are bored as shit, and you could REALLY use a drink.  What do you do!?  

You hope to god that you know someone who has an “in” to a Speak Easy.  The point of a Speak Easy was to be clandestine, hidden, and only open to those who knew about them.  Advertisement was by word of mouth, and entrance usually involved some cryptic process or phrase.  THUS, the Speak Easy party should work the same.

IMPLEMENTATION

You do not want to just invite a bunch of people to a Speak Easy party.  You should be more secretive, and cryptic.  You can go simple and just implement a password, or you could go complicated and try any of the following:

• Make custom invites, and give them to a handful of close-friends to distribute
• Alert all your friends but tell them they must decode a message in order to figure out the details
• Invite all your friends and give them the details, but let them know they can only get in if they can “find” the invitations, and leave clues as to where they might be.
• Throw a series of parties, but only invite a few people to the first.  Inform them that the series will continue on the same night each week, and that they can bring friends, and watch it grow each time. (word of mouth is powerful).

ATMOSPHERE

To establish the proper Speak-Easy atmosphere you should implement the following:

• Lots of drapery (around windows, walls, and doorways)  usually in deep-red or darker colors
• Dim lighting (so the Speak Easy is inconspicuous)…..this may mean candles
• Gambling (It really adds to the atmosphere to have a poker game or two going on around the party)

Drinks

• Creative drinks and cocktails…usually from the era such as: Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Pimms Cup, Martinis and others
• Champagne

COSTUMES

Girls

• feather headbands
• beaded dresses
• boas
• hats (cloches or otherwise)
• stockings
• and possibly fur
• long gloves

Guys

• Suits
• Fedora Hats
• Gatsby Caps
• Top Hats
• Bowlers
• Suspenders
• Trousers
• Formal Scarves

GALLERY

Tags: 1920s, 20s, cloches, club, cryptic, decades, dim lighting, fedora hats, full swing, gatsby, martinis, party drinks, pimms cup, poker game, prohibition, secret, sexy, Speak Easy, time word

Category: College Party Themes, Party Lab Originals, Sexy