Top 10 Picks | Rakhi gifts that sisters would love!

Make this Raksha Bandhan memorable for your sister! The Soirée book has hand-picked our top 10 gifts for this occasion that you could buy online. And the good news is that some of them are also on discount!! Hope you like some of these, do share this post on your Facebook wall and tag your brother to give him the cue. 😉

Couture Diaries – Buy her a Designer Outfit this Rakhi. Pernia’s Pop up Shop stocks some of the top selling designers like Sabyasachi, Manish Malhotra, Tarun Tahiliani, Masaba, Anita Dongre and more with the benefit of worldwide shipping.

Buy here – http://www.perniaspopupshop.com/

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend! – And even better when they are on discount! Tanishq is offering 15% discount on their diamond jewelery this festive season.

Buy here – http://tanishq.co.in/shop-online

Bespoke Experiences at Luxury hotels – Gift your sis an ITC voucher that she can redeem for a memorable spa sojourn or a signature culinary delight at any ITC property of her choice.

Buy here – http://www.itchotels.in/giftvoucher/selectvouchers.aspx

Make a statement with a statement necklace – Pick up some cool accessories online from Forever 21 India website. Your sister will surely adore them!

Buy here – http://www.forever21.com/IN/Product/Main.aspx?br=f21

Gift her an authentic leather bag – Da Milano bags have a mix of classic elegance and enduring sophistication. Be it Handbags, Portfolio bags, Travel Bags, Wallets or Accessories, their products are of a good quality and offer lifetime warranty. And the best part is that they are offering 30% off as a part of their end of season sale.

Buy here – http://www.damilanoshop.com/index.php?route=common/home

How about a phone cover? – If your sister is into gadgets and loves to change her phone cover at the drop of her hat, you may wish to consider buying a swanky new cover for her.

Buy here – http://www.elitify.com/collections/tech-accessories-women

Diet conscious, are we? – Gift her a hamper of low-cal diet free goodies from Archies.

Buy here – http://www.archiesonline.com/shop-online/Rakshabandhan/Rakhi-With-Cookies/Rakhi-Diet-Free-Hamper/9394

What’s the time pls? – Buy her a nice watch. That would remind her of you each time she will glance upon her watch to check the time.

Buy here – http://www.ethoswatches.com/watches-for-her.html

Fruity tales – Gift her an exotic fruit basket that she could feast on. Incredibly healthy and value for your money!

Buy here – http://www.naturesbasket.co.in/pages/fruit-gift-hampers/pgid-266815.aspx

Who wants chocolates? – You can’t go wrong with chocolates! Never Ever! Choko la does a box of 3 or 6 assorted chocolates.

Buy here – http://www.chokola.in/Gift_Hampers.aspx

Till next time.. stay blessed!!

Disclaimer | None of the above images are owned by The Soirée Book.

Baby Shower Event Styling and Decor

Celebrating the arrival of a baby in the family is a grand affair in India. While the traditional women-only ‘godh bharai’ is still prevalent, this Indian baby shower has gotten a new makeover in the city with an American twist.

“The regular ‘godh bharai’ ceremony has more to do with family. Friends are usually not involved in it. However, baby showers have everything to do with friends and fun. In the traditional ceremonies, the mom to be is made to wear a heavy saree, put on jewelry and sit for the customs but baby showers are different. The baby shower organised by friends involves games, activities and laughter.

Mantra events by Sagun Bhayana – one of our preferred vendors on ‘The Soirée Book’ shared photos from the baby shower of their client Priyanka Beri.

The venue was residence of the client in Punjabi bagh.The colour theme was  yellow and green as it was a day function – a bit different from the usual colours of pink and blue.
The entrance was decorated with balloon arches with different kind of balloons like the polkas and foils with regular balloons.The whole garden was filled with balloon standies and flex welcoming the baby.

The client sourced the cake from Jaya Kochhar. Jaya’s cakes are a regular feature on our blog which is a good estimate of her popularity in the city.

Till next time..enjoy the summer colors of lime and yellow decor here..

Cheers !
Leena

You can contact Mantra events at – evemantra@gmail.com

Let’s celebrate Jia’s onset of her journey ‘Around the World’

Do you dream of packing your bags and taking a trip around the world? Jetsetters Bhuvan and Mitu Mathur who have collectively visited over 50 cities planned an appropriately themed ‘Around the world’ party for their daughter Jia’s first birthday !

If you need some inspiration for your kid’s next birthday party, check out this impressive party designed by the super-creative Mitu Mathur..Think globally and celebrate locally with an around-the-world party inspired by a few countries, a specific continent or the whole wide world. Kids will enjoy themselves and learn something new in the process!

Here are the soirée details from the horse’s mouth –

Jia’s first birthday was the most special occasion for us. Being new parents, both of us wanted something different & unique, for which we started planning good 4 months in advance.

Since her birthday 19th November was on a weekday we decided to organise a photo shoot at the Lodi Garden in the  afternoon.Our photographer was Mr. Ankit Chawla , who specialises in Kid Photo shoots and is a very talented young guy.The day was spent playing with Jia in the awesome backdrop of  her playing in a white gown with us in the lush lawns and then ending with her smashing a large chocolate cake !

For the party the biggest challenge was to select a decent venue and it started with scouting for all major Hotels and Banquets in South Delhi . Since the Birthday was in November
we were also looking at using a venue which had a decent outdoor area.
Finally we zeroed down on the Oodles Hotel in Chhatarpur .With its large lawns and beautiful landscaping the venue was an instant hit.

We as a couple are travel enthusiasts, and have been carrying our daughter around, inevitably without asking her!
This would often lead us to discussions hoping its not unfair for
such a small baby to be on the go so much. Thankfully, our recent return from a trip to Italy with our 8 month old little darling, convinced us that she was also bitten by the travel bug!

So zeroing in on a theme wasn’t tough – our celebration had to be based on Jia’s Travels. We thought it would be interesting to explore the possibility of how kids perceive travel and
what it would mean to them 18 years from now.

We met a number of Party Decorators and Designers to  get ideas and suggestions, including some big names in the market. They all had typical ideas and mundane suggestions. Mostly, when we mentioned our theme, we saw raised eyebrows. Hence, we decided to go ahead and design our own party.
An idea which sounded cool but landed us in time consuming arguments, sleepless nights, endless research and lots of physical hard word work to do!

On our recent trip to Italy, we discovered how Jia enjoyed looking at new places. She had a blast there with the Lovely museums , cathedrals , pigeons; and mostly Gelatos and Pizzas!

So, our list included simple things – Famous destinations, popular modes of travel, good food, toys for kids and most important – travel tips.
Which initiated the idea of a Time Capsule for Jia, where all guests could write best wishes for Jia and tips for her when she would turn 18;
on a postcard and put in a box, which would be opened for her on her 18th birthday.

To our surprise, this was the most special gift Jia received on her birthday.
To complement the theme, we got large thermocole posters of Wonders of the world, including Taj mahal, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Egyptian Pyramids, London Bridge, Eiffel Tower etc.

Along side we also bought some DIY models of prominent global monuments like the London Bridge,Eiffel Tower , Taj Mahal etc. and made them ourselves. This again turned into a super fun exercise for both of us. These models were places as standees with balloons to fill us space and the smaller ones as table decor on round tables.

Now, it was important to get lots of airplanes !! So we took the onus finally after scouting the Toy stores got some large and small toy planes.

Complimenting the look were helium Air Plane Baloons which formed an inviting entrance feature.

The smaller toy planes were a great play  amongst the young ones.
To add to the excitement, we arranged for a toy train to give rides to the kids.
Many of them did not even want to go away from the train!

Mitu being the architect, decided to make a giant poster which would serve as a backdrop to the cake cutting ceremony.  She made a beautiful collage of Jia’s pictures along with interesting graphics of airplanes and iconic monuments exclaiming – Oh! The places she’ll go!!

The cake was designed to be simple and delicious in 3 flavours
– chocolate, red velvet & chocolate-walnut, with pictures of iconic monuments. A three tiered arrangement of cakes, surrounded by smaller cupcakes in 2 flavours
– chocolate & red velvet. The cake table also had small models of iconic monuments, which added to the charm of small things and great pleasure. We got the Cake done by Ms. Anushka of Divin -i Licious cakes ,Vasant Kunj  ( 9811961572).

The return gifts were assembled by us from the nearby stores : A bag (from karol bagh) with snow-white for boys and Disney “ Cars “ for boys with a cartoon figures Baby Blankets inside.
We then attached airline luggage tags with the babies name on the tags so it gelled well with the “ travel “ theme.

All in all it was an amazing time and awesome memories of a lifetime for us !

Bhuvan & Mitu Mathur

Lipsticks..Heels..Cupcakes..and posers..| Behind the scenes @ The Vogue Beauty Awards

The Vogue Beauty Awards were held recently at the Taj LandsEnd, Bandra, Mumbai. Having been into Corporate events since the last 7 years, I have to confess my love for the grandeur and glam quotient at such soirées! This week, The Soirée Book brings you photos from the event. Even if you are not into corporate events, you can learn a thing or two from this wonderful event! Read on..

Invite | Men may come and go, but a lipstick is forever. The invite for the beauty awards had a pic of ‘lipsticks’ on it. Very apt, ain’t it?!

Party venue and decor | The event took place at Taj Lands End and they took care of the party decor. Anyone who has been into the event and party business can vouch for the service and hospitality of the Taj group. LandsEnd is a beautiful property and the hotel staff had taken extra care in putting this event together. I love the flower arrangement at the entrance. It is simple yet sophisticated!

Party props | I just loved the idea of using hastags placards for the guests to use when posing for photos. What a  refreshing and fun idea?! Within a few hours, my Instagram feed was flooded with pics of bollywood celebrities posing with a unique card. My fav is Kangana Ranaut.. she looks so damn hot! I think this idea would work very well for a bridal shower or even a 16th or 30th milestone birthday party. What do you reckon?

Lip-smacking delicacies | The food at any party is the focal point. At this soirée, we saw some innovative desserts like this lip-shaped candy.. They also had a macaroon tower and the regular cupcakes and fruit tarts.. Although I have my doubt whether the likes of Shilpa Shetty and Neha Dhupia ever touch any of these!

Hope you liked the post..and if you did..do share this post with your friends on facebook and share some love..

Next on the blog.. back to birthdays with a first birthday party of a lil girl on Weekend and a baby shower post early next week.. stay tuned!

Ta,
Leena

2000 hits !! Top 5 posts on The Soirée Book

I have some incredible news for all our readers.. The Soirée Book has reached 2000 hits in just three months time.. During the last three months, we have shared 25 posts with you.. Our official facebook page recieved an overwhelming response with 80 Likes till now..

I would like to thank you all for staying tunned.. And would like to take this opportunity to ask you what more should we focus on?! Would you like to see more of Real birthday parties for imspiration or would you like us to focus more on vendors review or a mix of both?!

At this milestone, I also thought of sharing some blog statistics with you.. The Soirée book has followers from 25 countries.. see the list and map below..

And finally time to award the most popular posts on The Soirée Book.. Here are the top 5 winners (as per blog statistics) –

1) Welcome to Zoya’s Butterfly garden – thank you Heena Malhotra for the wonderful pics and excellent write-up..your post got the maximum likes in the minimum time span !

2) Close runner up is the interview with Sakshi Khanna from Pink n Purple events.. thanks Sakshi for sparing time for us.. we love your work !

3) Next in the line is Cakes Mamma Bakes by Ipshita Chakladar.. a lot of people have told me how much they loved this post and the gorgeous cakes designed by her !

4) Following next is ‘first birthday with a caterpillar theme’ by Deepa Bansal.. This also happens to be the first post on the blog.. So, a big tight hug for Deepa to get the ball rolling..

5) And last but not the least, thank you Megha Nangia for Amaira’s ‘Butterfly and all things nice’ birthday blog for the ‘The Soirée Book’..

Thank you all once again! If you like our posts, do share the love on facebook and twitter..

Next on the blog are ‘Party inspirations from Vogue Beauty Awards’ and a first birthday soirée with ‘Around the World’ theme..

Stay tuned (and stay fabulous too!)..

Cheers..
Leena
XOXO

You are invited by Goldilocks and the three bears!

This fabulous GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS THEMED PARTY was submitted by Anjali and Ritu from Birthdays n More, based out of Gurgaon.

What a fun party theme! I especially love the cute “Three Bear” caketable. I also love all of the cute bear shaped centre pieces used throughout the party. This party has so many darling ideas and details that would work perfectly for a birthday party for a boy or girl or even a story time playdate..

So, what are you waiting for? Get ready to travel to a magical fairy-tale wonderland with this Goldilocks and the Three Bears-themed birthday party!

Customised invite

Beautifully decorated entrance gate

Cake table decor

Meet the Goldi locks and the 3 bears

Centrepiece..

Fun coloring activities for kids

Color them in..

Tatoo artist..

Gear up for a puppet show..

A close look at the cake table with the 3 bears.. and return gifts on the side

Bouncy fun!

Like this party decor?! Share some love in the comments below..

You can get in touch with Birthdays n more here – https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=128287020672072

Strawberry Shortcake themed 1st B’day party by Mantra events..

Today’s feature on ‘The Soirée Book’ is a 1st birthday party with a Strawberry theme submitted by Mantra events. This week I met Mantra events where they showed me the photos of some of their fabulous work. Here is what they have to say –

We did a 1st birthday party by the theme Strawberry shortcake. The theme was selected by the client. The Client gave us the details of what kind of party they are looking for and rest left it on us and asked us  to go by our creativity.

We started with a huge entrance of colored frills and at the entrance gate we did all ribbon work unlike the balloons arch. It was an open garden and gave us the oppurtinity to decorate the place with lots of props like Paper Fans,Chinese Umbrellas,Standies 3Dthermocol strawberries,Coloured flowers etc.

We also created a separate kids section. The entrance of kids section was a huge 3D cut-out of strawberry in thermocol and there were rides and tattoo n painting sections for the kids. We also created a candy shop, a photobooth,huge Wishing tree made of iron decorated with strawberrybags and customised bunting. It was a colourful  and vibrant theme comprising of colours mainly like red,pink and green.

There was a huge bar area in the middle of the venue. We created an island bar decorated with mirror panels and a huge conical shape in lit prop. The seating was decorated with flowers pots as centerpieces and fresh strawberries were also used for decoration.The whole bar area was decorated with strawberry bunting. The photowall was a hit among the guests who posed for the photos with umbrellas in their hands!

We provided the client with birthday stuff like  caps,tiaras,lootbags,customised eye masks etc.

The cake and return gifts were sourced by client directly. (Editor’s note – The cake was sourced from Ipshita Chakladar. We have featured some of Ipshita’s wonderful cakes in our feature Cakes Mamma Bakes – https://thesoireebook.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/cakes-mamma-bakes/ )

Did you like the party decor and styling above? To know more about Mantra events, read on –

Mantra Events by Sagun Bhayana was incorporated in 2012. Sagun is a Commerce Graduate from Venketeshwra college and his lovely wife Megha is an MBA from Apeejay School of Managment. They specialise in Wedding decors n apart from weddings they also do Cocktails,Bhajan Sandhya,Home decors,PreWedding functions,Birthdays,Baby showers,Baby announcement etc. They have a workstation in Chattarpur. They have an in house production and deal in all kind of theme parties for children as well as youngsters. The husband wife duo works together and strive to make the event a memorable one.

Check out their FB page here –
https://m.facebook.com/EventsMantra

Contact them for any enquiries here –
9891102200,9891502200

Next up on the blog are a couple of Real birthday parties followed by a baby shower.. Exciting times ahead!!!

1 minute Oreo Mug Cake | Recipe

Do you have a favorite dessert you enjoy making that makes you feel like a “Supermom”?

You know…the desserts your kids rave over and beg you to make over and over again.

Desserts that teachers are still requesting you bring them…YEARS after you first shared them with the staff?

I LOVE desserts like that.
I have a handful of them and this Homemade Oreo mug cake is
definitely one of those desserts!!

See the recipe below..it is super easy to make and since it adapts easily to any celebration or holiday it is perfect for tucking into your recipe file under Easy & Fun Party Desserts.

Get the RECIPE HERE!

Let me know if you try making this..
I’d love to hear you gush about how much you love it too! *wink*

Next on the soirée book are a couple of real birthday parties and a post about return gifts!

Till then cheerio..
Leena

15 Awesome First Birthday Party Invitations..

Your little tot’s first birthday marks the milestone of 1 year of joy (and also survival for the parents), so it is a worthy cause of celebration!

As you begin planning out our child’s first birthday party, you’ll want to find the perfect 1st birthday invitations. We’ve put together our favorite 1st birthday invitation ideas for you to choose from.

Let us know which one is your favourite among these..

1) The Big One

2) Number One

3) The Beaded invite

4) The superhero invite

5) Featured in National daily

6) Ever popular Princess theme

7) Counting the seconds gone by..

8) Simple yet impactful!

9) Things to do before I turn 1..

10) Oh what a year it has been!

11) let’s go bananas.. shall we?

12) Moustache bash..

13) One-derland theme..

14) Here comes the cowboy..

15) Jungle theme..

What’s cooking? A lil chefs party!

When throwing a children’s birthday party, the key to control the chaos is to keep the kids busy. Very, very busy. This is the perfect time to host a lil chefs party..Fun with food is the name of the game. .

Submitted by Birthdays n More, here are photos from a very cute Lil Chefs party..Dressed up as little chefs and using kitchen utensils, children engage in a lot of flameless cooking activities..

The vendor decorated the tables, dishes, trays, play food, menu cards, and organised a  pretend kitchen area for the budding chefs…

Kids were given bread slices with sandwich spreads..cutters and fresh veggies to make their own sandwich..
After all the sandwiches were eaten, it was time to decorate cupcakes!

It was nice (and more fun for the kids) to step back and let them do all the work and decorate gorgeous cupcakes and cookies..

The kids also enjoyed a chocolate fountain at this party..and overall everyone had a splendid time!!

We love the decor and ideas at this party.. We met with Birthdays n More this week to find out more about their venture..

Birthdays ‘n’ More, fondly referred to as B’n’M, was founded by Anjali and Ritu, who as passionate mothers, found it great fun and excitement in planning and executing birthday parties for their children and their friends. On receiving loads of appreciation, encouragement and well wishes, B’n’M was conceived in January 2013.

Ritu is a Fashion Designer from The National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi, having several years of experience in designing Home Fashion and Apparel for international brands.

Anjali has several years of experience in Social Media & Marketing having worked in the Banking and IT Sector. The background and experience of both founders, put together, make an excellent mix for the success and longevity of B’n’M.

B’n’M started out planning and executing birthday parties for small gathering of 15-20 children and now caters to parties of 100 plus children. Services include Venue Suggestion, Customised Theme Decor, Catering, Games/Activities, Game Co-ordinators, Bouncy, Play Areas, Bowling Alley, Carton Live Characters, Puppet Shows, Magicians, Jugglers, Clowns, Designer Cakes & Theme foods, Personalised Return Gifts, Costume Parties, Music, all with the main focus Design, Baroque party ideas and most importantly our hands on approach at each and every event.

B’n’M planned and successfully executed Kid’s Entertainment Zones at The Palms Springs and Trinity Towers, Diwali Mela in Oct’13 and in additional organized & executed Stalls with several Fun Activities at Diwali Melas held at Belmonte, Club Patio, Close South (Nirvana) and Garden Estate.

B’n’M has been appreciated and written about in The Times of India; The Financial Times, and Gurgaon Times.

Contact –

Birthdays ‘n’ More Event Planners

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Birthdays-n-More/128287020672072

Contact: +919871071380 | +919810167537