Back to the 90s

boughtWhere am I going for my birthday this year? I'm going back to the 90s!

Let's start with the menu. I graduated in 1998, so the nineties were all about snacks. So my menu included a Cassette Tape Cake as well as the most unhealthy, but totally nineties snacks - Cheetos, Pringles, Ritz Bitz, Handy Snacks, Ring Pops, Jolly Ranchers, and Capri Suns. I used colorful plates, napkins, and silverware and VHS tapes as risers. And it was all set across the backdrop of The Max, the ultimate nineties hangout from Saved by the Bell.

Then came the music. For me the nineties are synonymous with music. The first things I think of when someone says nineties is all of the music videos I watched on MTV and VH1 - hour after after, especially in the summer (does anyone else remember Motel California?). So I created a nineties playlist (okay, I didn't create it, I already had it because the nineties are my favorite) and we rocked out to the Goo Goo Dolls, the Spice Girls, Nirvana, Green Day, Save Ferris, Sublime, Blink 182, Britney Spears, Gin Blossoms, Oasis, Blind Melon, Weezer, Third Eye Blind, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, LFO, Jewel, Foo Fighters, and the Cherry Poppin Daddies. SInce most of my friends were also teens in the nineties it was a veritable singalong, especially when we got to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song. And because it's not nineties music unless you bought it from Sam Goody, I re-created one in my dining room.

I went all-in on the nineties with our games, so I had a table set up with buttons you could decorate for your favorite bands/celebs (I made an I Heart Hanson button) and we all made fortune tellers and played MASH. Sooo nineties! I married Leonardo DiCaprio. Toward the end of the evening we all played Nineties trivia and asked the Magic 8 Ball inappropriate questions.

In addition to Sam Goody and the Max, I also covered one bookcase to look like a Nintendo Gameboy, covered my file cabinet with a Twister board (sheet? mat?), bought a bean bag chair, dressed Cassandra in a jean skirt and floar top, and decorated one whole wall to look like my bedroom wall with posters, photos of friends (authentic), stickers, etc. and put out my tape player, my teddy bear, hacky sacks, and those funny little pacifiers we used to wear as necklaces.

Speaking of those pacifiers, you cannot have a nineties party without dressing like the nineties. I went with a light tie-dye tee over a long sleeve tee, cargo pants, a flannel, Converse, a whole bunch of necklaces (one was hemp and had a peace sign), painted my nails blue, put scrunchies on my wrist, and wore my hair in pigtails. Everyone really got into this part and, even twenty years later, I don't think we looked thaaaaat different =) Trixie even dressed as a beanie baby!