Pageant Week Is Here!!!

January 21, 2009

Okay, please forgive me in advance for the unnatural amount of caps and exclamation points I may be using, but I am SO EXCITED!! The contestants have arrived in Las Vegas, and pictures are already starting to circulate of the various events. It’s like Christmas for pageant people!!

So if you are like me on any normal year, you are deep in the midst of planning your pageant party for finals night (this year is party-less for me because I’ll be attending the actual pageant). Well, if you check the TLC Miss America web page you’ll see that they are doing something really cool – they are helping with your party planning! They have downloadable ballots, a link to special Miss America Evite invitations, and printable tiaras so that everyone at your party can be appropriately fancy. I love it!

I think I always have the most fun with the ballots for my parties – I always try to come up with silly questions and funny “bonus point” things to get the non-pageant people just as interested as us pageant folks. I mean really, people bring their boyfriends and husbands, and I can tell you that they are much more likely to participate if I include “will anyone trip/fall onstage??” on the ballot instead of just a straight: “Name your top 15/10/5”.  And since most everyone at my parties are Atlanta transplants and most of us are from different states, I always end each ballot with “Did your home state make the top 15?” as a bonus question. It looks like TLC liked that idea as well. :) I think the most important thing is to make it as fun as possible, keeping in mind that not everyone attending may be as cuh-razy about pageants as you most likely are. So print out the ballots, because having a picture of each of the contestants on hand is surely helpful for those who don’t know their top 15 prior to arriving at your place, and ENJOY!

Now, another thing you want to give some thought to is food.  I always do the same thing, so my friends have come to expect it so much that I don’t think I could change it if I wanted to.  I am rather proud of my chili recipe (I actually entered it in a chili cook-off this year with more than 70 entries and actually tied for fourth highest score... woo hoo!), so I always just cook up the biggest pot of chili that I can, supply the beer and wine and let my guests bring a sweet if they wish to for dessert. I’ve heard of some pretty creative things from other people, though. Things like choosing your own personal top 10/15 contestants and making a dish to represent each of their states (or assigning each guest a state and asking them to bring a dish representing that state if it is a pot-luck type of thing). 

Some other tips to remember:

1) If the pageant begins at 8, DO NOT tell people that is when they should arrive. People are notoriously late, and there is NOTHING more offensive to a pageant person than folks showing up and pulling focus during the introductions. Once the pageant starts, I do not answer the door or my phone until commercial breaks, people!!!

2) In reference to the ballots and the whole “contest” atmosphere that it creates among your guests: The person with the most points at the end of the evening naturally is the winner, and it may be wise to have some sort of prize on hand for that person. I say this because it didn’t even occur to me to have a prize at my first pageant party, because pageant people are happy enough with just the “title” of winning the most points. But non-pageant people tend to need a reward for staying involved throughout the whole process, so in the relatively annoying case that a non-pageant person wins, it is best to have a little something planned to give them. Of course, toilet paper sashes are always an inexpensive and crafty way to properly award the winner their title, if you’d rather not spend the extra money on an actual “prize”. Other inexpensive ideas are plastic tiaras, anything sparkly and/or girly, or a good bottle of wine.

3) And last, if you are a pageant person and some of your guests aren’t, don’t be afraid to pepper the crowd with inside tidbits throughout the pageant. Non-pageant people really dig that stuff, and they always are amazed that you know how many times Miss New York competed before she won, what Miss Colorado’s platform is, and the fact that Miss Maryland loves Golden Delicious apples.

Get to planning, people!!