Emily and I spent Saturday morning making lots of cucumber sandwiches in preparation for the Tea at Two. We also made almond cakes. Other people made chicken salad, chocolate covered strawberries, glazed nuts, cream cheese mints, scones, Death by Chocolate mini cupcakes, and lemon poppy seed cakes.
Emily and I dressed up before the Tea. She wore a clip-on "fascinator" on her hat which she won two years ago at the Tea. My hair clip was made by our niece for Emily's birthday gift this year.
Cynthia Webb was the speaker for the Tea, as she was two years ago. Since Jason was the piano entertainment for the Tea, she wanted him to be dressed up for the occasion. It made it more fun for Jason to wear the fancy clothes and the top hat.
Cynthia and Jason after she got him all fixed up!
This is Cynthia in the hat she wore for most of the Tea. She is a milliner, a farmer's wife, and a Christian motivational speaker. But she also gives talks and demonstrations about hat styles and hat making, which is what she did this time.
Of course, I wanted a picture with my handsome son!
Emily was a tea server for the occasion.
How Jason looked while he was playing for about 1.5 hours. He played mostly hymns and Christian music, plus his own original compositions. It was wonderful background "noise" and everyone seemed to love hearing him play.
This is looking from the Senior Center kitchen out into the Tea before all the guests had arrived. There was a contingency of 21 Red Hatters who filled three tables.
Emily was a careful tea server. When a teapot was empty, she went back for a different teapot. I think we had at least eight teapots with four in use at a time. We had a helper in the kitchen making more tea from tea essence all the time. This picture caught Emily holding her own teapot that she bought at a garage sale last year.
This shows how the tables were set. Old fashioned handkerchiefs are the napkins. The cups and saucers are varied and all beautiful. Decorated hats were the centerpieces.
We had serving tables with all the food on them, so that lines could be served from both directions at once. Lots of the guests wore hats, which added to the fun of the afternoon.
While Cynthia spoke, after the teatime, she had three ladies who were modeling clothing and hats from late 1800s and early 1900s. The models were good sports and made it a fun afternoon.
Tea at Two is one of our two main fundraiser events in the year for the Historical Society. We are glad to have this one behind us. It was a lot of work, but everybody had a good time.
