Two teams, consisting of a pair of females and a pair of males, allowed the Daily access to their party-planning processes for the Daily's Battle of the Sexes. The teams took a very different approach to planning a social gathering.
Team Girls
The female team was composed of seniors Lisa Wang and Amber Woods. The pair set off to plan a party of perfection starting with an enticing theme: Heaven or Hell.
"Everybody loves a theme party," Woods said.
To establish their theme, the girls decided to send out an Evite entitled "Judgment Day."
The e-mail invitation read: "Come on your best behavior...or not. Whether you're feeling sinful or saintly, be sure to dress the part. Have a drink... or seven, and there's no doubt you'll be in heaven."
"We wanted to get the word out there to several different groups of people," Woods said of the girls' decision to send an Evite rather that invite by word of mouth. "Parties tend to end up more successful if there's awareness beforehand."
"Evite is good because it also sends out little reminders a couple days before," Wang added. "It's also fun designing it and making up questions that people can answer."
One of the questions on the invitation was designed so that the girls could find out what drinks to serve at the party. Through the poll, guests could choose beverages such as "Tempting Tequila" and "Virginal Vodka." "Slutty Sangria," however, turned out to be most popular and thus became the drink of choice, in addition to "Blasphemous Beer."
In an attempt to concoct the "Slutty Sangria," the girls searched the Internet for a recipe.
"But [we] ended up improvising a lot of it," Wang said.
"We had white and red sangria made of Carlo Rossi wine, vodka and lots of fruit," Woods added. "There was supposed to be Sprite, but I kind of forgot to put it in. We also had a keg."
Drinks were not the only highlight of the party: Team Girls went all out with their decorations.
"We decided to decorate because we didn't want to have a theme party and make people dress up without doing some work ourselves," Wang said.
The first step to decorating was taking precautions. "We just made sure that the house was bare so nothing would get broken," Woods said.
Left with an empty palette, the girls made signs for heaven and hell in the two main rooms. "We just used some construction paper and creative cutting," Wang said.
Overall, Team Girls felt that their party was a success. "It was a great group of people where everyone knew enough people so they felt comfortable," Woods said. "But there were enough different groups there so that everybody could meet new people."
Team Boys
The male team was composed of seniors Scott Armstrong and Dan Martin. Instead of having a theme party, the boys went for a classic, Animal House-style approach.
"We just wanted to get our friends together and have a good time," Armstrong said. "And a Beirut tournament seemed like a good plan."
Armstrong and Martin decided to have a Beirut (or beer pong) competition for their social event. A week before the party, they called their friends and asked who wanted to compete.
"We didn't want to send out formal invitations," Armstrong said. "You always end up having more people at a party than you invite, so we figured the tournament would get out fast enough by word of mouth."
After coming up with a list of 40 people, they made 20 teams and headed to the liquor store to stock up on beer.
"We ended up getting two kegs and a bunch of 30s," Martin said. "But we ended up having to make another run [to the store] before the tournament ended."
As pairs hit the Beirut table, the rest of the party socialized in the house, playing drinking games such as flip cup and Click-Clack, also known as 7-11 Doubles.
"It was pretty simple," Armstrong said. "When we really want to have a night of mayhem, we go into Boston to a club or bar. This was just a bunch of people hanging out together and drinking heavily."
"Having a Beirut tournament makes things more exciting because of the competition involved," Martin added. "If we were all just sitting around having beers, it would be like any other night."
Unlike the girls, the boys did not prepare for any destruction to their house. "It was all friends, so we weren't worried about anything getting stolen," Martin said. "But the next morning was disgusting."
After a night full of beer games, the floor was covered with sticky remains. "You have to expect a mess if you're going to have a party," Armstrong said. "But we had a good time even though we were robbed of the championship."
After the tournament ended, the night evolved into a dance party featuring classic 80s music and the popular song "Call on Me." Even as the crowd dispersed, the games continued and some late-nighters played Twister.
"All in all, it wasn't that bad of an event," Martin said. "But it would have been a lot better if our place was a little bigger."
