first annual pie night

Well folks, I think I settled on an annual party I'd like to throw -- Pie Night! I first heard of pie night shortly after I entered Russ's family, because one of his aunts does this every year (for her immediate family I think, but that's how I heard about it). In case you're unfamiliar with it, the idea is that on Thanksgiving Day, you get too full from all the other good food, that by the time it's time to eat pie, you can't fully enjoy it. Thus, you have a "pie night" some other time, where you can thoroughly enjoy all the pie.

Pie Night is a great party to throw because it's relatively easy and cheap! Decor is already taken care of because Thanksgiving decor counts; all I had to do food-wise is make (or buy!) one pie, and then I provided milk, cool whip, and reddiwhip; and my only costs were basically paper products, printing costs (for invitations, printable, and food tent labels), and I really splurged with the three dollar store prizes haha :) I think I spent about $20 total.

I was all set to design my own invitations, but a quick browse on Pinterest brought me to these invitations which were already designed! However, I wanted to make a few quick edits, so I worked some magic in Indesign. (A few quick edits turned into a more long and tedious process, though 😂 )

Pie night came, and with it, lots of pies! We had banberry (strawberry-banana cream), two banana creams (one homemade and one from the store), chocolate silk, coconut cream, oreo, chicken pot pie, and (in the separate picture) a superman pie!

the pie originally had superman stickers all on the sides of the
pie tin, which really added to the uniqueness of the pie haha :)

Using the judging cards provided on the above-linked website (tweaked to change the third category), we voted on prettiest, tastiest, and most unique pies.

My personal thoughts were that the chicken pot pie was tastiest, coconut cream was prettiest, and superman pie was most unique. Overall votes went almost the same way, although majority chose banberry as tastiest (which I also obviously think is tasty, since that was my pie!).

Here were the winners! I tried to get prizes to reflect what they were winning, and then once two of them were things to go on your head, I made the last one work as a head thing, too (it's a bowl).

most unique -- superman pie // prettiest -- coconut cream pie // tastiest -- banberry pie

The party was fun, but definitely chaotic! 16 people is a lot for one little house haha :) I was worried Ada was going to wake up from all the noise, but she slept through it like a champ! After all the pie festivities, about half the people had to leave because the pie took longer than I anticipated. Once they did, the party became much more manageable! Haha 😂

The remaining couples played a game of Poor Man's Cranium (I've also heard it called "Celebrity" with slightly different rules), which was freakin' hilarious. I just looooove laughing so much! It was so fun to be with friends!

Overall, the party went well, but there are a few things I'll do differently next year. Although the pie contest was fun, I think I'll remove that aspect to remove any pressure. Buy a pie, make a pie -- whatever! It doesn't matter :) And I'll have more of an open-house style. Those two aspects (no contest and open-house) combined will make it so that it doesn't matter if all the pies are there at the same time, which should make it for an even more relaxed party than it already was :) I think it's so easy to feel lots of pressure as the host, so I'm all about removing any pressure I can!

I'm so grateful to have so many fun friends :)