The Chicago Caper

Last weekend I hosted a murder mystery party. I have done many in the past, but this was the first one I'd done since my single days. I wasn't sure if Nate would enjoy it, since he'd never done one, but I didn't give him a choice in the matter. Lucky for me, he did enjoy it and now I know that my murder mystery party days are not over.

Finding 3 other couples to participate ended up being more of a challenge than I expected. We thought we were all set, but one of the couples had to back out kind-of last minute and gratefully, our neighbor Sherrie's sister, Rose, and her boyfriend were more than willing to step in . It ended up being a very fun group.

Setting up for the party was quite the task. We had gotten our carpets cleaned the week before, so we took advantage of that to move our furniture into different locations for the party. We moved furniture into our living room (which previously only had the two bookcases) and set up our dining room table in the family room so that we had more room around the table.

We did The Chicago Caper which is set in a 1928 speakeasy. For decorations I put up some brown paper on the wall in an attempt to resemble holes in plaster and I picked up some liquor boxes from the liquor store to stack around the room. I also covered the windows with brown paper and a dropcloth.

I set up our living room as a lounge and used the pillows from our bed to add to the look on the couch and then hung the drapes from our bedroom to separate the living room from "da back room".

I had fun setting up the table and experimenting with different ways to fold the napkins. I settled on "The Rose" since it also worked great as a holder for the placecards.

Since we were in a speakeasy, it only made sense to have a bar. My dad kindly agreed to play the bartender and I researched the popular cocktails from the 20's and used my Mocktails recipe book to find some non-alcoholic versions.

With only a few minor glitches at the beginning, everything went as planned and it turned out to be a very fun and enjoyable evening. I look forward to the next one!

The Gents

(Greg, Nate, Rich, James)

The Ladies

(Rose, Sherrie, Me, Mary)