The beauty and sparkle of winter is everywhere in December. So for our second annual holiday party, we whisked our guests to a magical Winter Wonderland. We worked with the staff at The Chester to transform their Biergarten into a White Wonderland. We are excited to share this Winter Wonderland holiday party with you.
A winter wonderland theme conjures up visions of white, silver and icy blues. With just a few special elements, we transported our guests into a memorable Winter Wonderland. Our blog was inspired by our White Party for our 30th birthday.
We have an easy formula to decorate on a budget. Here’s our secret formula to twinspire any party:
Winter Wonderland Holiday Party Decorations
Inga of International Garden created our floral arrangements. She placed white hydrangeas in bud vases to mimic snowballs. We also scattered icy blue gems around the bouquets. We designed our Winter Wonderland printables using JennyL Designs’ patterns. Archana made blue and white chocolate pretzel rods as favors, which served as additional decor.
Winter Wonderland Attire
Guests were asked to dress in winter whites. They wore white sweater dresses, white jackets, white long sleeved dresses, silver dresses or white sweaters. Don’t they look fabulous?
Winter Wonderland Holiday Drinks
We believe every party should a signature cocktail. Guests sipped on The Wonderland vodka specialty cocktail. Our friend, Eric, added glow in the dark LED ice cubes to the drinks. Guests also sipped on lots of red, white and sparkling wine and beer.
Winter Wonderland Holiday Food
We used Must Have Menus to print custom menu’s for the evening.
We loved our whimsical menu that was inspired by the holidays and featured wintery foods.
Winter Wonderland Sweet Treats
Archana baked mini vanilla cupcakes for our guests and topped them with white chocolate snowflakes.
Winter Wonderland Holiday Party Photobooth
We recommend adding Photo Booth backdrops and props to every themed party. While purchases from Etsy will easily run in the $100 range, the memories you make with them will be worth so much more. We loved this silver backdrop. To create the beautiful bokeh effect, ask your subjects to move away from the backdrop and closer to the camera.
Thanks everyone for joining our second annual holiday party. We can’t wait to celebrate again next year!
Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream and Snowflake Chocolates
Equipment
- Stand Mixer
- Cupcake Liners
- Snowflake Molds
Ingredients
Vanilla Cupcakes:
- 3 cups flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 5 large eggs
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
Buttercream:
- 2 cups unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 lbs confectioners’ sugar
- 1/4 cup milk
- 3 Tbsp meringue powder
- 1 tsp salt
Snowflakes:
- 1 cup of white chocolate candy melts
Instructions
Cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Put cupcake liners in cupcake pans. Use regular cupcake pans or mini cupcake pans.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Cut up the butter into 1-inch pieces and place them in the large bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment or beaters. Beat for 3 minutes on MEDIUM-HIGH speed until the butter is light and creamy in color. Stop and scrape the bowl. Cream the butter for an additional 60 seconds.
- Add the sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, beating 1 minute after each addition. Scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally. Add the eggs one at a time.
- Reduce the mixer speed. Stir vanilla into the buttermilk. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk. Mix just until incorporated. Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix for 15 seconds longer.
- Spoon the batter into the cupcake pans.
- Center the pans onto the lower third of the oven and let bake 45 to 50 minutes or until the cake is lightly brown on top and comes away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Buttercream:
- Cream shortening and butter with Stand Mixer.
- Add flavoring and salt.
- Add sugar, one cup at a time. Add meringue powder.
- Add milk and beat until light and fluffy.
- Add blue food coloring to frosting and mix.
Snowflakes:
- Use a double broiler to melt the chocolate.
- Place melted chocolate inside snowflake candy molds.
- Freeze for 10 minutes.
- Release snowflakes
Assemble:
- Use a 1M tip to pipe frosting on cupcakes.
- Add snowflakes to cupcakes.
Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.
Pietro Aretino
Lovely photos, well done :-)! Regards from Germany.
Omg, I love those cocktails. Do you have the recipe anywhere? I'd love to try them.
This looks like an amazing party. I love the little cupcakes and all the glitz and glam!
The cupcakes are so cute and the signature cocktail sounds yummy! I love that you included lots of glitter to mirror the glittering winter snow.
I want to attend one of your parties! This looks so lovely and planned to perfection. I am a big fan of themed parties and love it when hosts ask their guests to dress up. Good call on the winter white attire!
This seems to be a great idea to surprise your guests. Everybody loves the 'Winter Wonderland' concept.
I love everything! It looks very glam and it makes me think of a party. 🙂
It looks so cute! And the glittery backdrop was perfect. My favorite touch was the light up ice cubes. So fun! 🙂
Uhm great place and photos. I may say everything is great. Thanks for sharing them up.