Are you wanting to create a memorable Mother’s Day tea party with your friend to celebrate the mothers in your lives? If you’re stumped on where to start, let’s walk through these 8 steps together!

Before we get started, it’s important to decide which type of tea you will be hosting. Do you want to host a Mother’s Day high tea or a Mother’s Day afternoon tea party? Why is this important? Because according to Destiny Tea, many Americans use the term ‘high tea’ and ‘afternoon tea’ interchangeably even though this is not accurate.

Afternoon Tea Vs. High Tea

A proper “afternoon” tea is considered a relaxing light meal including finger sandwiches, a light selection of savories and sweets and can be enjoyed for up to around 2 hours. Whereas a true high tea party is traditionally a full dinner with more hearty dishes enjoyed by the working and middle classes of the time.

For this particular article, I will walk you through how to create an “afternoon tea party” with all of the enthusiasm only a true tea lover can exude.

This post is all about making your very own Mother’s Day Tea!

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Let’s Get Started…

The table of contents below is a short list of all the elements you need to sort out to create a well-organized tea event. Just remember to have fun and not get too overwhelmed in the details.

Mother’s Day Tea Table of Contents

• Tea Party Theme
• Flower Arrangements
• Serving Hot Tea
• Location
• Tea Invitations
• Afternoon Tea Menu
• Table Setting
• Tea Party Favors – Succulents Edition

Tea Party Theme

You may think you’ve determined your party theme by making it an afternoon tea party, but that is only just the beginning. What will the overarching theme be? This will help you determine your color palette, the fine china you will use, and what activities you will choose to have at the party.

• Country tea party
• Garden tea party
• Mad Hatter tea party
• Fairy Garden tea party
• Regency tea party
• Mother’s Around the World tea party
  • Showcase a variety of cultural traditions amongst Mom’s across the globe.

Flower Arrangements

“Flowers are love’s truest language.” — Park Benjamin

Flowers not only brighten up a table setting, but they can also convey a deeper meaning to your overall theme. Yes, your flower can actually “speak” for you!

When attending events, guests often appreciate being surprised with details that go above and beyond. Consider including flowers that have a variety of meanings and then frame a small card that explains what each flower means and how the florets pertain to the event.

Why You Should Include Roses In Your Centerpieces

Sprinkle in a variety of rosa (roses) in your bouquet to relay the symbolic meaning of ultimate beauty, protection, hope, and passion which are just a few of the many connotations according to S. Theresa Dietz who wrote the book ‘The Complete Language of Flowers’.

Not only does the rose revolve around a variety of meanings, but a change of petal colors can add a layer of sub-meanings to which may impress your guests.

Based on S. Theresa Dietz’s writings, the color of roses I suggest you include in your bouquet for a Mother’s Day tea would be the following:

• White roses: Eternal love, heavenly, caring, etc
• Roses with pink & white petals: I love you still and I always will
• Light pink roses: Admiration
• Pink Rose Buds: You are young and beautiful, & girlhood
  • The budding pink roses are a cute addition to a bouquet for little girls who may be attending.
    

Serving The Tea Hot

Choose Your Difficulty Level

The process of providing hot water for your guests’ can either be extremely simple or quite difficult depending on how many people are attending your event. 8-10 people is manageable for you to host alone, but the more people you invite the more you need to acquire a hot water team to support you!

Tasks for the hot water team (20+ guests)

• One or two people are dedicated to ALWAYS boiling hot water.
  • Instruct these individuals to boil water even when you don’t need any. Don’t wait until guests need hot water to start warming the stovetop.
• One or two people dedicated to delivering hot water to the dispensers or the teapots.
• Two or more people dedicated to serving hot water to guests’ cups and monitoring the water levels.
  • These individuals will inform the runners if they’re running out of hot water and if they need more soon.

Make It Easier On Yourself: Serve Cold Tea

Do you have a lot of people attending your Mother’s Day tea, but you don’t have enough volunteers to make a strong hot water team? That’s truly OKAY! Remember this event is more about celebrating the mothers than creating a traditional afternoon tea.

You can provide dispensers with iced tea for your volunteers to fill up the teapot with. This eliminates the need for a bigger team of volunteers, and everyone will still have a delightful time.

Party Location

Ask yourself where the best place is to host this tea. Below I will list a few ideas of locations you can consider when planning the best place:

• Your church
• A backyard
• A local Park
• Dining hall
• Host at a local tearoom shop
  • This would eliminate you having to do a bulk of the hosting since the business would take care of this for you

Tea Invitations

It’s time to get to work making your tea party invitations. The theme you chose will affect how you style your invites. The look you choose gives the attendees an idea of what to expect at the tea. For example, I wouldn’t suggest you pair an extremely elegant invitation with gold trim when you’ve decided on more country styled tea theme.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• How much do you want to spend on invitations?
• Deliver the invitations personally or mail them out?
• What date / time will you be hosting the event?
• Will there be any games guests need to know in advance? For example, a Mother’s Day raffle?

Below is all of the pertinent information you’ll want to include on your invitations:

• Type of party
  • Afternoon tea, high tea, cream tea, etc.
• Date
• Time
  • Afternoon teas typically start at noon, and high teas usually start around 3 pm in America.
• Place
  • If the tea is not being held in your home, then be more precise about the location than just providing the address, such as: “Tea will be held in the dining hall of “Ruby County High School”.
• Light Refreshments.
  • Be sure to tell your guests that there will light refreshments. This is vital information. You want your guests to show up hungry but not starving.
• RSVP
  • Do not skip this step on the invitation! Otherwise, how will you know how many people plan to attend?
  • Provide a deadline that gives you enough time to secure the seating arrangements and the food. I usually recommend 2 weeks prior to the event.

{Loving Our Mother’s Day Tea Party Post? Check out: 22 Best Graduation Gifts For Girls She’ll Love You For!}

Afternoon Tea Menu

Providing enough food for everyone is critical and calculating how much to provide should be done in advance. A flagship for afternoon tea menus would be the tea sandwiches.

According to Nan Taylor, who authored the book ‘The Graceful Art Of Tea’, you should plan on 5 finger sandwiches per person which would equate to one whole sandwich per person after the crust has been cut off.

I’ve provided a link to Nan Taylor’s lovely book above, but I would not suggest you pay a large sum of money for the edition and instead look at the ‘used’ section for less than $10. Ebay would be another great option to check.

Mother’s Day Tea Menu Ideas

Below is a sample menu to inspire you to make your own afternoon tea menu. The scones in the menu were inspired by the Food Republic Blog ‘Scone Styles To Know For Sweeter Tea Parties’.

The Table Setting

In this section, we will briefly cover the functionality and organizational arrangement of the dishes you will set on the tables for an afternoon tea.

Table Setting List

• Tablecloth & runner
  • Hunt for great pieces at garage sales, thrift shops, or shop on Amazon.
• Centerpiece
  • Review the ‘Flower Arrangement’ section for centerpiece inspo.
• 3-tiered server
  • Sandwiches go on the bottom server, fruit in the center, & scones on top.
• 2-tiered server
  • More sandwiches and/or sweets such as cream puffs, tarts, etc
• A plate or two for serving more scones & fruit
  • This is for overflow
• Milk jug, sugar bowl, & a clotted cream dish.
• Teapot
  • Multiple teapots depending on how many people you are sitting at a table
• Napkins

Tea Party Favors

“I’ll Take My Succulents with A Cuppa Tea, Please” – CM

This is one party favor that won’t ever get tossed in the junk drawer at home! Ask your local church to make a donation request from the congregation for teacups or go hunting at garage sales and thrift stores!

You can provide the succulents yourself and make this a wonderful party favor for your guests. OR you can turn this into an activity to which your guests will bring their desired succulent with them, and they would choose which teacup they want to put their plant in at the party.

Mother’s Day Tea Success

Teatime is up! I hope you enjoyed our 8 easy steps to making your very own Mother’s Day tea party! Share with us your success and we’ll be happy to feature your party on the blog!

Where To Next?

• 22 Best Graduation Gifts For Girls She’ll Love You For!
• FarmHouse Wall Decor Kitchen Ideas
• 21 Insanely Cute Wedding Gift Ideas For The Bride

This post was all about making your very own Mother’s Day tea