How to Plan a Party

Ruby's grad party, pineapple flowers, and my tumultuous hosting history

Eons ago, the year after we moved into this house, I hosted a blog meet-up/sleepover on a whim, inviting the first 30 people who signed up to visit my home, where my friend Jolene hosted a Noonday party. (Remember those?) We spent that night hanging out in the lobby of the local Holiday Inn Express (if memory serves me, I shared a hotel room in my own town with three other women I’d never mettttttt!) The next day, we tooled around Goshen together, thrifting and eating. 10/10 no regrets!

I remember it all, but the part I remember most is that my (new) friend Lauren had arrived early to help me get ready for the festivities and I was…no where near ready. I was finishing up snacks that theoretically should have been prepped the day before. I was still wearing my sweatpants and had not yet done my hair. (You all know how much I hate getting ready!)

The clearest part of this memory was the look on Lauren’s beautiful face when she realized how much there was to do, including the fact that the name tags, which I had hand-made and artfully half-dipped in a paint wash, were nameless.

“I’ll finish the nametags,” she declared, with an expression of unflappable, can-do resolve. “I just need a Sharpie.”

“I don’t have a Sharpie.”

“You don’t…have a Sharpie?”

But listen, this was in the very era when Silas was moonlighting as Banksy, tagging everything from couch cushions to actual lampshades in purple - his favorite shade. He was a living, breathing, pony-lashed Harold with his purple crayon, though he preferred permanent marker. Not only were Sharpies a luxury item that weren’t in my budget at that time, under this roof, they were contraband.

Though the food wasn’t ready and I wasn’t ready and the nametags would never really be ready, I had spent hours over the previous week crafting pinwheels from magazine pages - the living room was fluffed just so. The flowers (cut from my yard) looked amazing and the food was delicious. Lauren did her best with a crusty Bic ink pen I rustled up from beneath the couch cushions, and she did this without making me feel like a complete failure of a hostess.

We had a smashing time! We forget the rest.

Over a decade later, I can see that I did not miss my calling as an event planner. Case in point: we have a bunch of people coming to our house tomorrow and the only thing I’ve done to prepare is delegate cookies to my mom, watermelon to my mother in law, and last evening, in a panic, I ordered cupcakes from the Walmart bakery. (The woman I spoke to was a dear!)

What am I doing?

Well, I’ve devoted my enthusiasm over the last 24 hours to baking paper-thin slices of pineapple - the Pinterest “pineapple flower” project. I was dubious at first. It seemed like one of those hacks that was a weed-out mechanism for gullibility. Pineapple into flowers? (This is another way of saying that I spent a good bit of time on a very specific detail that might not even work.)

Halfway through, I realized it seemed to be working, but I did not have the equipment (muffin pans) I needed to see it through.

I texted the neighbors to the north and the ones to the south.

They passed me their pans.

The pineapples flowered beautifully.

phase 1

(The hardest part is riding the line between drying them in the oven long enough, and overbaking them.)

Today’s agenda includes picking up fruit (Aldi) and flowers (Trader Joe’s, but only because a lil field trip feels like fun??!) Tomorrow we’ll set plastic tables up on whatever patches of level ground our back yard yields. We’ll cover them in pink¹ plastic tablecloths and pray it doesn’t rain.

Over the past week, someone referenced a grad party that costs thousands of dollars. In Goshen! Several others discussed how stressful it was to plan a graduation party. Each time, I felt a surge of panic - am I supposed to be more stressed? Am I forgetting something? Am I “planning” the dumbest party in the history of graduates?

When it comes to hosting a party, I am not advocating for the complete abdication of responsibility. (Have a Sharpie on hand, for the love.) I am simply suggesting that it’s our sense of required perfection that holds us back from gathering more often in the first place. One of the most important lessons my neighborhood has taught me is that hospitality is not about inspiring awe, it’s about inspiring connection. The everyday, ordinary kind.

Impressing is the enemy of community.

The truth is, many of my friends are more talented at this sort of thing. They enjoy it more, or maybe differently. They are important detail people, not pineapple flower or handmade pinwheel detail people. (Some are both! Can you imagine?) My nervous system thanked me when I really understood that there is no standard for hospitality. We can go at our own pace. We can be ourselves. In a world of bigger and better, I am confident that no one will be mad about homemade lemon bars (thanks, mom!) or store bought cupcakes (thanks, Walmart!)

The fruit will get skewered. The patio will get decorated. (In this moment, I remembered that we have not yet secured chairs for tomorrow. Chairs!) Beloveds, we will find some chairs.

Ruby River will dig into every ounce of her scarce “peopling” reserves and consent to being the center of attention for three straight hours. (Taking a cue from her mother, she’s spending this entire day braiding her hair. We will find some chairs!)

We’ll hug a bunch of our favorite people.

No one will leave hungry.

Ruby will feel loved.

(And the pineapple flowers will look amazing.)

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One week from today we kick of Fat Tomato Summer 2025!

Our tradition is officially three years old. What a cutie! It’s an 8-week virtual party of sorts, and in typical fashion, I’m focusing on the most random of details.

My hope is that it will be a visual/mental/emotional reset for our depleted hearts.

Fat Tomato Summer is available in its entirety to paid subscribers only. If you could use some lightness and breathing room this summer, dive in! It’s just $5/month. (If you’re already a paid subscriber, you’re good to go.)

Join me for 8 weeks of pretending we’re still kids who get a summer vacation. Together, we will go searching for the juicy bites and take a solemn vow of rest, beauty, and adventure. (FULLY aware that these moments might only be measured in minutes. It all helps.)

See you here next week, party people! It’s going to be A TIME.

1. Most grads decorate around their high school colors but Ruby chose pink. Pink everything. I’m obsessed with her. This is how to live!