News: 80s Party Planning Story

First off, I am quite proud of myself for throwing this party for as little money as I did. I went through my closets and luckily I had saved things which helped to set the mood. I had my old albums, 45s, cassette tapes and VHS tapes. I also had old cell phones, walkmans and such which we used as centerpieces along with wayfarer sunglasses and mini rubik's cubes. I bought the sunglasses at amazon.com and the rubik's cubes at a local dollar store. I also bought all my paper products from the local dollar store and friends helped by bringing dishes to pass.

I made posters for each year. Each poster had major national and world events for that year along with the movies, TV shows and songs we were watching and listening to. I used black, neon pink and neon green for my color scheme, transferring my basement back in time. Down the stairwell to the basement I used post-it notes (invented in the 80s) with the popular sayings of the decade, ex. awesome, rad, gnarly, etc. and a large sign that said "Save Ferris." Also, I used old computer diskettes as coasters. I taped a neon green or pink post-it on each diskette. I then made clear labels with popular quotes from movies, TV shows etc and placed them on the diskette.

In the invitation, I asked everyone to send me a picture of them taken in the 1980s and the high school they attended. I had two groups of guests who did not know each other so I made name tags. This was a great ice breaker.

We also have a projector/ large screen TV so I hooked up my computer to the projector. As everyone was arriving, I had a slide show of their pictures while the 80s music was playing. After everyone arrived I officially opened the party by playing the "MTV moonlanding" followed by "Video Killed the Radio Star" and a host of other 80s videos.

Thanks again,
Anita in Michigan