Ghouls just want to have fun! Halloween is right around the corner, and we couldn’t be more excited. We partnered with Flora Springs, Mexicue, Instaballoons and Dora Marra on an oh so frightful Dia de los Muertos party. The party featured skulls, skeletons, a ghost winery and delicious Mexican bites. We are excited to share our spooktacular Dia de los Muertos soirée with you.
Dia de los Muertos translates into Day of the Dead. It’s a day to remember loved ones. This Mexican holiday begins on October 31st and ends on November 2nd. The spirits of children arrive on October 31st for a day and adult spirits follow the next day.
How To Decorate for a Dia de Los Muertos Party?
Let’s have some skele-fun! Calacas figures (skeletons) and calavera (skulls) are prominently displayed at Day of the Dead parties. We framed our table with Dia de los Muertos balloons from Instaballoons.
Our Day of the Dead table runner was vibrant with two full skeletons, floral crowns and lots of colorful flowers.
We layered bone china skull plates on yellow melamine plates. Since this was an outdoor party we placed silverware on top of our Day of the Dead napkins. If you don’t have napkins, place silverware in a cup or utensil holder.
Our centerpieces featured Flora Springs’ Halloween wine collection. We decorated the Flora Springs wines with Halloween wine toppers. We also placed vibrant pink roses on the table.
What to Drink at Dia de los Muertos?
Lift your spirits. We started with a traditional Mexican cocktail. The Paloma combines fresh grapefruit & lime juice, chili syrup and hibiscus. Mexicue has a pre-made Paloma mocktail mixer. We mixed one part tequila and two parts Paloma mixer for an easy specialty cocktail. Don’t forget to serve the cocktail with ice.
During dinner, we sipped on 3 wines from Flora Springs. Since Flora Springs is a Ghost Winery, they create special Halloween wines annually. We sampled Flora Springs 2018 Ghost Winery Malbec, 2018 All Hallows Eve Cabernet Franc and 2017 All Hallows Eve Cabernet Franc. For more on these Halloween wines, see our How to Celebrate Halloween with Flora Springs Halloween Wines post. You can also find our previous collaborations with Flora Springs here.
We recommend decanting these wines to aerate them. You can click here to learn more about these wines and Flora Springs.
Mexicue has a mexcellent catering menu. We visited the Flatiron location a few weeks ago. We love to cook but sometimes you just can’t do everything for a party. If you don’t have time to cook or don’t like to cook, then we recommend ordering off the catering menu from Mexicue. Best of all with catering, there are no dirty cooking dishes to clean up. We started with grilled cornbread and Mexican street corn.
Of course, we also had some chips and dips. We tried the guacamole, salsa verde, guajillo chili salsa and the bean dip. It was love at first bite.
Mexicue has 4 hot sauces that you can add to your taco at your own risk. We love spicy food, so we loved them all.
Bone appetite. These appetizers are a fantastic way to start our Day of the Dead dinner party.
For dinner, we served smoky chicken and crispy fish corn tacos as well as poblano mac and cheese.
We also served chicken enchiladas. It’s was a whole lot of cheesy Mexican deliciousness.
What To Wear?
We wore black dresses and red or gold spiked floral crowns from Dora Marra. We also applied the traditional Day of the Dead eye makeup. It is a lot easier than it looks. If you have a black or dark gray creme shadow and black liner, you’re half way there. We watched a few YouTube videos since this was our first time. We also added a few jewels for some extra glam. Other guests wore eye-masks, face-masks, jewels and/or makeup. Anything goes at a Dia de los Muertos party. Just have fun with it and check out our “squad ghouls.”
This month, be the ghostest with the mostest and host your own Dia de los Muertos with Flora Springs, Mexicue, Instaballoons and Dora Marra. If you are looking for ideas for a festive brunch, then check our last year’s Dia de los Muertos brunch.
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Such a beautiful set up! The skull plate is so cool!
Oh my gosh PLEASE invite me to this party, it looks like SO MUCH FUN!
Oh wow this is so creative. The facial decor, the foods and the overall arrangements are super. Good suggestion for a perfect party.
What a fun setup! And I have never seen or heard of grilled corn bread–I’m so trying that this weekend!
I remember this beautiful animation film looking at your photos, they are beautiful.
Oh my goodness! Everything here is so beautiful, vibrant, and creative. These ideas are perfect for a Dia de Los Muertos party. Wow!
Beautiful party decor, everything looks so nice. Love how all the colours are so bright.