Creating a Ladies Tea

I have written an entire program for creating a lovely ladies tea for your church or organization and am sharing with you some excerpts from it to whet your appetite. I created it for the ladies of my church, ironed out all the wrinkles, and had about 20 ladies on a cold January Saturday morning. Everyone had a wonderful time and wanted to make it an annual event.

Select your favorite tea, pour a cup, and settle down into your favorite chair. Think about who you could invite to a ladies tea and how much fun it could be. I see there are other hubs here about how to make a perfect cup or pot of tea, choosing your tea, etc. which will be a great addition to this program/hub. So hop around and read the other hubs, but come on back and read about the tea party itself.

Ladies, do you want to have a tea party, but don’t know where to begin, or don’t have the time to do the research? I have just the thing for you. I wrote this complete program from start to finish for a Ladies Tea Party at my church. It is complete with a sample program, games, food ideas, and links to web sites where you can get more information if you so desire. Everything that is mentioned in this packet is on the CD.

Sure, you could spend a lot of time and do the research yourself, but if you are one of those people who aren't very creative and want it all laid out for you, then this will be a big help to you. Following are some excerpts from the program I wrote.

Pick a date and time a couple of months in advance of when you wish to have the tea. Start promoting it in the church bulletin, the newsletter, and any other means of communication you use, such as e-mail. Emphasize that the ladies are to invite others to come—those who are already their friends, those they might like to get to know better, and especially those ladies who don’t know the Lord. This is a non-threatening event to which they can bring their unsaved friends where they will hear about Jesus and experience His love through the fellowship of Christian ladies. If you’re planning for a January tea (which I recommend), pick a snow date in case the weather doesn’t cooperate and dumps snow or ice in your area.

I suggest January because it is a time when the after-Christmas Holiday Blues set in. The weather sometimes is dreary. Some women feel cooped up in the house, and others are lonely after all the relatives and friends have gone home. It is just the thing to perk up a January day. We picked the third Saturday in January, with the fourth Saturday as our snow date.

After the date and time is established, get busy working on details because time has a way of creeping up on us sometimes, and you want to be well prepared.

You may wish to include teen and pre-teen girls in your invitation. There was a 12-year-old girl at our tea with her mother and grandmother, and she loved it and had a good time. Ages below 10 or so, might be a “hazard” because of hot tea, small not-so-sturdy tables, fragile china, and distractions during the devotional at the end.

There are many ways of creating interest in the tea as well as giving ladies opportunities to invite others AND reminding them of the date. Here are a few:

• Invitations with a tea bag inside
• Tea cups/saucers and/or teapots displayed in a safe place with a poster of the date and time
• Insert in your church bulletin or newsletter inviting and reminding the ladies
• Personal invitation always works well.

In my program I include many ideas to choose from:

• Things to talk about or do during the tea party
• Games to play and inexpensive prizes for the winners
• Theme suggestions
• If you choose January for your tea, tell the ladies that January is National “Hot” Tea Month
• Poems to share
• Recipes to use
• Food suggestions
• Decorating for your tea
• Favors, name cards, flowers
• A program laid out for you that can be copied and shared with the participants, telling them what you're going to do, giving them a poem or thought to read while waiting for others to arrive, and other items
• Evaluations
• Links to other ideas

Not all of the ideas are my own. Some are a take-off of other ideas I saw in print or on the internet. I tried to give credit for the origin of the sources which will hopefully help those individuals and websites as well. Some were notes I jotted down here and there and don't remember where or from whom I got them.

I spent hours and hours on this program, doing a lot of research and visiting and reading websites and magazines. My program will save you the time and trouble and give you something easy to orchestrate for your ladies group.

One idea I did not put in the program because it was an idea for another tea was to invite one of the ladies from my church who spins wool from her sheep into yarn for her customers to come and show us how she does it and explain the process. When she showed me, I thought it was fascinating and would make a good theme...maybe something like "Home Spun Tea" and include homemade tea brews.

I kept a notepad in my purse and handy at home so when I had an idea of something that would fit into the theme, I could jot it down and work on it later. You will find this program very detailed and helpful in planning your ladies tea. Please contact me for how to get a copy.