GGB Fort Collins – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Mimosas
For Geek Girl Brunch Fort Collins’ fifth brunch, we chose to celebrate Harry Potter’s birthday! (It’s July 31st, if you didn’t know.) We assembled our ladies (with 4 brand new attendees!) at local restaurant – The Mainline.
“Accio, Mimosa!”
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This was the brunch that didn’t want to be!
If you wish to read only about brunch and not about our struggle…we suggest you jump to the next set of “*****”. 🙂
We had never struggled with a brunch so much (and we hope to never struggle as much again). We had planned to return to one of our favorite restaurants (as voted on by the brunchettes), Jay’s Bistro. However, when we called to make our reservation, we found that Jay’s was no longer open on Sundays and also no longer offered brunch at all! “A CURSE UPON ALL YOUR HOUSES.” But we persevered. We called the Mainline, our second choice, and they happily accepted our 10:30am reservation.
When we called the day before to confirm our reservation, they told us that they don’t open until 11:00am and whoever made the reservation was wrong. We begrudgingly accepted changing to 11am and contacted all the brunchettes to be sure they were both aware of the venue change and the new time.
And for the grand finale, we had ordered a hand-made necklace shaped like a vial of Felix Felicis as our raffle prize. It did not arrive in time due to Post Office delivery procedures, so we had to tell the winner that we would get it to her another time (which we did when we finally got ahold of it). Luckily, everyone had a lovely time anyways, but we will have to be way more meticulous in the future.
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For this brunch we chose to spend most of our designated donations on a birthday cake, which said “Happee Birthdae, Harry!” (just as Hagrid wrote it – which confused the woman at the bakery) so that we could all wear party hats and sing Happy Birthday to the boy who lived!
We also provided charms shaped like the Deathly Hallows for each brunchette, as well as a variety of votive candles that the ladies could take home if they wished. And, as always, cosplay was welcome and encouraged!
Brunch member Elizabeth took the initiative and decided to provide each brunchette with a Hogwarts acceptance letter, a list of school supplies, a quill, a house bracelet and a baggie of golden snitch candies – all of which she made by hand! It certainly elevated everyone’s experience and we are very grateful for her contribution!
We started with an icebreaker – each lady wrote her name and her favorite Harry Potter character on her name tag. Then we each took turns explaining why we chose our favorite character.
Following our ice breaker, we played a “Horcrux Scavenger Hunt”. Hidden somewhere in the restaurant was a Voldemort wand and whoever found the wand first received a prize. Harmony won a Ghostbusters shirt (and officer Sarah had to photobomb… because reasons). And as Harmony is a Hufflepuff, it was pointed out that:
“Hufflepuffs are particularly good finders!” – A Very Potter Musical
For our next activity we chose a Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean Blindfolded Taste Test! [Insert maniacal laughter here.] Each lady was given 2 beans and had to taste the bean and guess what the flavor was… with hilarious results. A few ladies chose not to participate and elected to simply sip their mimosas, thank you very much. They may have been the wisest of us all.
At the end of our brunch we pulled the name for the winner of the raffle (pulled from the sorting hat). Brianna won the Felix Felicis necklace! We also gave special prizes to Alison, who regularly donates $10 at every brunch, and to Elizabeth for providing the lovely favors for everyone.
To end the morning we each took photos with the sorting hat, sang “Happy Birthday” to Harry and ate some cake.
Mischief Managed.