This weekend I had the privilege of going to not one, but
two fabulous tea parties. That is
right! Someone had the best weekend ever
and I am pretty sure it was the girl who got to go to two tea parties!
Queen Mary Tea Room
A friend from dance classes had told me that a place existed
(and not too far from UW) that serves a proper tea complete with fancy linens,
matching tea sets and a wide range of tea selections. So I finally decided to see for myself
whether a place so magical indeed existed so close to my alma mater.
Apparently people only visit the tea room for special
occasions and our waitress sort of gave us a funny look when we said we were
there to celebrate life. Isn’t that
enough?
I was beyond impressed when I walked into a British tea
wonderland…and they even had colored sugar to put into your tea and timers for
how long to steep the tea. Of course we
just had to get the proper full afternoon tea for our enjoyment and it came on
a three-tier server.
Everything there was branded and fabulous…from the nice
China plates to the teapot. I can only
imagine how much work went into making sure all the personal touches were
perfect!
Before heading out, we took some more pictures and did some shopping. Such a
great afternoon activity!
Treehouse Tea!
I headed to the gated community of The Highlands in the
Shoreline neighborhood for the most exquisite tea party I have ever been to in
the most incredible house I have ever seen.
They had paintings by famous artists, an extensive baseball collection,
all rooms decorated immaculately and a Tiffany stained glass window (see below!). The house was owned by a former Microsoft
executive and his wife, who had recently finalized the divorce. They let complete strangers have free range
on their property for events like this…well I guess if you shell out enough
money. At the end of the day, we were
all there to support Treehouse for Kids, so it was an amazing day AND
benefitted a great cause!
The house had sweeping views of the water, statues and
seriously looked like it was a castle that belonged in Europe or something
(complete with a water fountain too).
And inside was a wonderland of all kinds of incredible
hats. Yes, every tea party needs some
good hats. I actually heard the house’s
owner tell a little girl that she loved this event because she could wear her
favorite big hat and not stick out since everyone else in the room was wearing
a hat too (since not many people wear hats in this day and age). Too adorable!
There were literally hundreds of hats (mostly designer) that were sorted
by color.
You could walk around and try
on hats of all different sizes colors and yes, containing all types of
feathers. So much fun!
The meal itself was very lovely and held in the house’s
marble ballroom. Sadly, my house growing
up did not have a ballroom like this place.
Everything tasted amazing and looked amazing. The butter was even carved into a rose. Who does that? Seriously, it was incredible. If that wasn’t enough, I even saw a lot of my
fellow Junior League ladies there!
I can’t even imagine if living in that house was part of my
life…living in a mansion with a marble ballroom, paintings a museum may be
envious of and with the most amazing accessories. I feel blessed to have seen it and it makes
me way happier than you can imagine that the owners are willing to open up
their estate to let others enjoy to raise funds for a great organization!
