Event Planners | Our Favorite Things Party

As event planners, we hosted our second Favorite Things Party this summer, a celebration of all the friends, makers, vendors, and creators that shared their talents with us. You might recognize some of these products from our Friday Finds. Take a look at our list and don’t forget to follow up on Instagram for more Friday Finds, Favorite Things lists, and more tips and tricks for small business owners and emerging leaders.
We hosted our second Favorite Things Party this summer, a celebration of all the friends, makers, vendors, and creators that shared their talents with us. You might recognize some of these products from our Friday Finds. Take a look at our list and don’t forget to follow up on Instagram for more Friday Finds, Favorite Things lists, and more tips and tricks for small business owners and emerging leaders.

So what is a “My Favorite Things” Party?

A My Favorite Things Party typically asks each guest to bring enough of their “favorite thing” to the celebration, where everyone shares their ideas, products, or nibbles. It’s a riff on the idea of a party favor, but in this case, the favors are the reason for the party, not a parting thank you! With Ricker Duval’s Favorite Things Parties, we take it to the next level. Rather than asking guests to bring gifts, we ask our favorite makers, creators, influencers, and builders to contribute to the event!  Unlike our Favorite Things Party in February, we kept this one very small and exclusive, mostly because of COVID-19. We only invited a handful of attendees, and ensured everyone was masked and socially distanced during our outdoor shindig. But coronavirus can’t keep a good time down, and we were so happy to be able to share these products with our attendees and Instagram followers.

Our Favorite Things

For Your Kitchen

Lily Patch Boutique – CAN we love these coozies any more? Not only are all these hand-crafted, customized coozies adorable and effective, they come in many sizes. Our current go-to? The “slim can” (*cough*spikedseltzer*cough*) sized ones! She even matched our Ricker Duval pattern. Find your perfect cooler mate – as well as her line of other custom goods – on Etsy. JCS Designs LLC – These bottle stoppers are so darn cute, we use them in every bottle we can. Wine? Of course, but we also like stopping up our oil and vinegar cruets and use them to dress up bottles of homemade dressings and drinks. Obviously, they’re also idea favors for your vineyard wedding! Check out all the personalized goodies from JCS on their site. 

For Your Wardrobe

Marleylilly – We’re ‘90s kids at heart, so these elevated slap bracelets are an on-so-current take on a fun throwback. Who doesn’t love a good slap bracelet, especially one this sparkly and monogrammed! We had to wrest them away from our daughters to keep for ourselves. Marley Lilly does a full range of monogrammable accessories and outfits. Give them a look now! Tie Dye + Tonic – the ‘90s are for sure in full swing for this set of favorite things! None of us leave home without our masks these days, and tie dye is everywhere, so talk about a perfect match! Fun, colorful and perfect for summer, we can’t wait to wear these out. And Tie Dye + Tonic doesn’t just do masks – find your perfectly tie dyed accessory or a complete outfit on Etsy, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. Elks Mane – Did we mention the ‘90s already? Scrunchies are back in a big way, and these handmade hair baubles are so perfect and so high quality. Elks Mane even sells styles that are designed for sun and surf, guaranteed to never face. Find your ideal hair accessory on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. SummerStyle Bracelets – A departure from our 90’s theme, these über cute bracelets are an essential addition to your arm stack. They customized ours to match our pineapple logo, and we couldn’t love them more! She makes several styles to get that oh-so-Cali summer feeling, and we loved bringing it to Connecticut. Find yours now on Etsy and Facebook.

For Your Body

Coola – This summer might be different from those past, but skincare and sun protection is always in style. Coola sent on this 70 SPF peach blossom scented organic sunscreen spray that smells AMAZING. You won’t get that oh-so-unfortunate sunscreen smell here! Order this and other unbeatable sun and skincare items on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. Foxglove Soap Co. – Handmade soaps are the kind of accessible luxury we think everyone should indulge in. Foxglove makes soaps that smell so good you can be tempted to take a bite! The delectable pineapple punch scented soaps gave our party – and now everyone’s bathrooms – the appropriate summer kick! Find your perfect scent on Facebook and Instagram.

For Your Happiness

ACouplePuns – We cannot love these adorable, punny custom greeting cards more. Boston-based A Couple Puns creates such fun notes and cards for every occasion you can think of. And of course we loved the “fineapple” pun made just for us! Pick out your perfect pun on Etsy, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. Pink Flamingo Party Co. – Talk about delivering! Pink Flamingo puts together out of this world balloon decoration kits and installations to take your get together from fun to fabulous, and for our Favorite Things Party, they brought the big… pineapples! The balloon displays took everything up a notch, giving our celebration the perfect look and tone. Check out her creations and order yours on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.

For Your Tastebuds

We couldn’t call it a party without great food and drink! Nothing makes a party quite like the consumables, even one with all the goodies we listed above! A special, delicious, thank you to: Hosmer Mountain Soda – A Connecticut favorite for years, Hosmer Mountain makes soda and seltzer to please all palates. YOu can order home delivery, pick up at the their Manchester storefront, or find at your favorite local eatery (like Seeds!). Check them out. Burton’s Grill of South Windsor – Is this one of our favorite places to dine? Absolutely. Have we stopped since COVID? NO WAY. Burton’s caters, delivers, and has outdoor dining (they’ve always had outdoor dining, which has always been a beautiful feature of their Evergreen Walk location!). They’re super allergy friendly and community oriented, and we love making them a feature of every party we have. Quiet Corner Cookies – These cookies are almost too beautiful to eat, but they’re too delicious not to! This home bakery out of Connecticut’s Northeast “Quiet Corner” makes the most amazing and precisely decorated cookies. She will customize for any and all occasions, and we love how well she remade our logo in icing! Take a bite on Facebook and Instagram. Don’t forget to watch our Instagram Live of the preview of this party below. Our next Favorite Things Party is already in the planning stages, so we’re excited to bring you the next batch of amazing goodies from our most coveted makers and creators. We cannot thank the participants of this one enough, even in difficult circumstances, we had an amazing celebration of your creations!  

Watch RickerDuval’s Preview of Our Favorite Things!