Harry Potter Birthday Party: The Guests Arrive

This is the second installment in a series about a Harry Potter Birthday Party. See the first installment about invitations and costumes here. Then read our post about Katie's Hogwarts Acceptance Letter here.

(Katie waits for her birthday party guests!)

This installment details how the party began. We have a rather unusual feature in the front of our house that I knew I needed to incorporate into our Harry Potter party. It is a pond! It is large enough that we have a boat that the kids play on in the pond. So of course, Hagrid met our party guests at the end of the driveway and rowed them across the pond to Hogwarts!

In the excitement of the moment, I forget to get any actual pictures of party guests arriving in the first -year boat but I made Katie sit in the boat this morning so you could get the idea!

Once they were across the pond, they arrived at Platform 9 3/4. (I know that doesn't make any sense chronologically in the books and/or movies but that is the way  it worked for us!) I found lots of great ideas for the painted brick wall on Pinterest.  I had an old shower curtain that we were getting rid of and I painted it using a rectangular shoe box covered with splotches of red, brown, and orange paint. I didn't want to go buy a sponge and the shoe box worked just fine.

I made the Hogwarts Express sign with terrific lettering that I found here. I cut out the letters and numbers and used a glue stick to attach them to red poster board. Thanks Kathryn at Dirt and Sunshine! I taped my completed poster board to a saw horse and stuck it on the porch.

Here is a cute party guest running at Platform 9 3/4. Once through the brick wall, the students parked their brooms and had their pictures taken.

I made the photo prop by cutting a rectangle in a piece of poster board and hand lettering the words "Have You Seen This Wizard?" with black Sharpie marker.

I made the Azkaban prison signs with some extra black numbers left over from a school project. I attached the numbers to the extra pieces of poster board and then taped on some string so the guests could wear the numbers around their necks as they held up the poster board. I made two different number signs to speed up the process of picture taking. One guests would get the number on and get ready while the other guest was having his or her picture taken.

The kids had so much fun mugging for the camera. And so did the Hogwarts Staff!

Did you ever imagine Professor Dumbledore and Madame Trelawny posing in a Muggle Photo Booth? I know, me neither!

Of course, we had posters of Sirius Black pasted around for inspiration.

Once their pictures were taken, the guests entered Diagon Alley to get their Hogwarts Supplies. I will post about our Diagon Alley next week so stay tuned!