We wanted all the decor ideas to relate to a drive-in or movie theater, so we started with the goodies - popcorn and candy! We decided to custom make our own popcorn along with having a candy bar AKA Haribo Bar. My husband is absolutely obsessed with Haribo Gummy Bears (Gold-Bears). This gave me a great idea of a past memory of us when we took the AMEX from San Deigo to Santa Barbara and met a very interesting German who gave us the deets on where the Haribo name came from (of course my husband brought up the topic of Haribo). I just love how the name was created so I used it to incorporate the favors. Haribo is an acronym for Hans Riegel and the company headquarters are located in Bonn, Germany. If you see in the picture below, it explains Haribo's acronyn, says what the birthday boy's acronym would be and tells the guests to grab their favor take-out box with their acronym on it (see picture below).
One of my husband's favorite movies is Big Trouble in Little China, so we purchased the Blue Ray DVD for his birthday. That's also how his mom incorporated the take-out favor bags. Such a hit!
Back to the decor. I did a lot of research on pinterest for popcorn ideas. Here you can see how I brewed them up http://pinterest.com/ladyloufa/movie-night-drive-in-party/I also wanted to incorporate sopapillas popcorn into the theme since he loves sopapillas. I couldn't find a recipe online so I made my own. The first batch was delicious, the second was even better so I created the recipe
Sopapilla Popcorn:
2 bags of Home-style popcorn, sprinkle of salt and a taste of butter
1/3 honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp confections sugar
1 buttah stick (1/2 cup)
First you pop the popcorn, place in a large bowl, remove all popcorn seeds b/c broken teeth do not make friends! Then melt the buttah, add vanilla and honey to popcorn, and throw cinnamon, sugar and confections sugar to it. Mix well with you clean hands and PUKOW! Sopapilla Popcorn like whoa!
The first batch of sopapilla popcorn is on the bottom and the top half is the recipe above - delicious (even for you people like me who hate actual sopapilla...sorry).
The venue Starlite Drive-in was awesome! There were a few downfalls, but not too big of a deal. You could only invite a select amount of people to your party and had to pay additional money for other people who came. I was also supposed to receive a table to put my wonderful popcorn and Haribo bar on but they forgot. Like I said, not a big deal b/c I used the bed of the truck to display everything. It had more of a drive-in theme anyway, so I'm pleased!
The popcorn balls recipe came from http://pinterest.com/pin/118501033914719728/
In order to ball this deliciousness, you need to add corn syrup to your hands so it won't stick to you.
No 30th Birthday is complete without bubble gum!
No drive-in is complete without sheets, we had it all covered.
All in all, it was one of the best birthdays I've been to and the best thing about it, was the downtown Austin scenery in the background of the movie!
