Anyone who knows me knows I have a couple of major passions, two of those being styling parties, and my love for Golden Retrievers. (we have 3!). Combine these two and you have a party that had me more excited than ever before, still buzzing and battling to sleep the evening AFTER the party. Finlay and his litter mates were born during lockdown, and delivered to us during lockdown. He was bred by my incredible breeder, Marycke Ackhurst of Quillquest Golden Retrivers. This litter became known as the virtual litter, as all our interaction before receiving them, all training etc was on ZOOM! When the pups turned one recently, Marycke asked if I would help with a party for them….ummmmmm do you think I needed to be asked twice? I had ten days to pull this off! A pretty monumental task! The result was incredible and way too much fun on every level!
I set up a human dessert table, with a gorgeous chocolate mudcake, golden retriever cupcakes and cookies, as well as cakepops and macaroons, and bone-shaped rice crispy treats. Then a hot dog bar was designed where you could “choose” which dog you wanted, depending on your topping choice! Aswell as this, little snack boxes were also made with an assortment of mini hotdogs, bacon-wrapped sausages, pretzels and fruit pots! There were drinks on ice as well as “toilet water” (sprite with blue food colouring), and my FAVOURITE, a Puppies and Prosecco wall! Owners could sit back and relax under the shade of the gazebos, while their dogs went mad!! For gifts for the owners, they walked away with a Hills goodie bag, and could throw into that poop bags, lint rollers (golden retriever owners really need these!) , steel water bottles designed with “dog mama” on, golden retriever teddies that were specially made, and golden retiever FLOOF (bags of yellow cotton candy!)
The doggos had a feast table set up for them, with a main cake, dog pupsicles (frozen lollies), dog pupcakes, doggie donuts, turkey and cucumber bites, then snacks like pork patty rounds, fish bars, dried chicken strips, and pupcorn. There was a plethora of spoilings for the doggos: Hills toys, sausage ropes, RUFF-age (dog toys shaped like lettuce and corn cobs), tennis balls, dog bowls to take home, water bottles for when they go walkies and frisbees! Bandannas were designed for the birthday pups saying “It’s my Barkday”. The doggos went crazy sniffing bums, chasing bubbles, snacking off their table, posing for photos and playing games like a “secret santa” gift swop-out game! They also played bread-roll-retrieve (my Finlay won!!!), musical cues and we never got around to the apple bobbing. It was THE most glorious afternoon spent on this beautiful farm, owners and pups left completely content and very much POOP-ed out! What a day for the memory books!!!
