You Should Throw a Party

an angel cake x Lunch on Friday collaboration

Editor’s note: For those who do not know, Emily and Angelina are Substack friends, work friends, real-life friends, neighbors, and in this case, CO-HOSTS. We call this Cake for Lunch. ENJOY!

All of the best things in our lives have come from parties. We became friends with each other because of a party—it was the first time we had spent time together outside of work (where we met) and both realized, “Wait, this girl is fun…” A party is a catalyst for letting go of inhibitions and being your true self, it’s for having absurd and silly conversations with someone you would have never crossed paths with, it’s the perfect way to celebrate everything and nothing and do absurd things like fill your bathtub with ice just because you can. 

We were inspired to write this after we threw an angel themed party in Emily’s apartment—people kept asking why we were having it and our response was always WHY NOT???? We can’t think of a better time to have all of our best friends, acquaintances and crushes all in one room where everyone was wearing glitter and feeling silly. We’d like to extend a huge thank you to our friends at Lantern Beverages for graciously filling the bathtub with rosé for the party because it resulted in everyone being absolutely insane (more details on that soon). 

This is a love letter to parties from two party girls who owe pretty much everything to the parties they’ve thrown.

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Angelina: Over a year ago, I wrote my love letter to house parties, and my love has only expanded since… I love house parties. I love hosting them. I love attending them. I love waking up the morning after a party and firing up the group chat about what happened the night before. I love celebrating everything and nothing with friends and strangers. I love the feeling of connectedness that transpires when we’re all in a shared space for the same reason. At my holiday party last December, sitting in my bedroom surrounded by old friends and new friends, my close friend Sam Wachs prompted the following question to everyone: What’s in for 2025? I didn’t have to think about my answer because it was the same answer as it was the year prior.

More house parties! And you don’t need an excuse to have one!

Emily: My first Big Party was for my twenty-fifth birthday. I somehow found a random bar downtown to let me have a giant room for free for the night and everything magically fell into place. My favorite moment is always seeing all of the small parts of my world materialize together into this quilt of beautiful people I’ve connected. Since then I’ve thrown more parties and have watched my guest lists change and morph as I have throughout the years. This past Saturday I remember taking a minute to look around at my apartment that was bursting at the seams with people all cast in a red glow from my paper lantern and took in everyone laughing and dancing and making new friends while not being on their phones and I teared up just a little bit thinking about at the simplistic beauty of a party (I also teared up because I was accidentally hammered in a sheer top while covered in glitter but that’s neither here nor there). 

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THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD THROW A PARTY !!!!!

The art of a party errand

Angelina: Hosting parties has led me to places I didn’t even know existed. In college at Santa Clara, I needed a piñata for something and drove to some obscure family-owned party store in San Jose that ended in, of course, some of the best tacos I’ve ever had. A few years ago, I wanted to create a bubbling effect in my cauldron for my Halloween party, so I ended up in midtown Manhattan at a dry ice distributor that was otherwise strictly meant for businesses in the meat industry. On Saturday, however, my task was to pick up the rosé we were getting from a friend of a friend who sponsored the party. Their office was in the Financial District—an area I rarely go to unless there’s a movie playing at the Alamo Drafthouse that can’t otherwise be viewed at an AMC—and I took the subway downtown from the West Village after not enjoying a too-oily slice of pizza from Mama’s Too. (No shade though, I think I just ordered wrong.) Once I arrived to the World Trade Center stop in FiDi, l accidentally exited on the side that puts you out into the Oculus, which, if you’re not familiar, is a jarring transportation terminal and tourist hub that’s basically shaped like a rib cage and looks like something you’d see in a nightmare or perhaps a Black Mirror episode. The day prior, I had seen on Instagram that a brand I follow was doing a pop-up there, and when I realized it was at the Oculus, I didn’t save the post because I thought, “When would I ever be going to the Oculus?” Sure enough, I was there the next day and couldn’t remember what that pop-up was even for because once again, when would I ever be going to the Oculus? Needless to say, I missed the pop-up. (I got the rosé though.)

Emily: The fun of a party does NOT start when people arrive, it starts the days leading up because party errands have a magical ability to bring you to different places you would never have gone to before and usually spur incredible conversations with strangers. The amount of sales associates that have heard me say, “sooooooo I’m throwing a party this weekend, we’re calling it angel party and my bathtub is in my kitchen” is high. I love shopping in-person because I believe in the art of the transactional conversation. On Saturday I woke up bright and early to bop to the hardware store in the village where I reeked of self tanner and was helped by Greg and Adam (boys I’m coming in this week to show you pictures of the party don’t worry) and then I strolled up to the Crate and Barrel flagship to buy martini glasses (shout out Melanie who helped me choose the right pair) to the Best Buy in Union Square to buy an expensive speaker because at my last party the music was too low, Miguel and I played a few songs from our ANGEL PARTY playlist on Spotify to test out which would be the loudest… it was awesome. I then went down to the Village Party store to buy pink cups and found a plethora of angel accessories because the Village Party Store has absolutely anything anyone could ever dream of. Everyone in Village Party laughed as I gasped at the robust assortment of angel wings. The finale of our party errands is of course Angelina’s and my trip to CVS at 7:45 P.M. before a party. For those who do not know, Angelina and I live in the same building which is magical on so many levels but especially for throwing parties. Another magical aspect to our lives is that my bathtub is in my kitchen (New York, New Yorkkkkkkkkk) because of this we have a tradition where we fill my bathtub with ice and drinks for parties because it truly is the focal part of my space and becomes a watering hole by 11 P.M. We love our local CVS, we joke that it is our third space and the trip to get 14+ bags of ice is always silly for all parties involved. LONG LIVE PARTY ERRANDS! 

Almost everybody loves to commit to a (low-lift) theme

Emily: We kept calling the party on Saturday “angel party” and somehow it really stuck, I personally love a theme but I wanted to make sure that this party was low-lift because parties should be NO STRESS! When I was choosing a date I decided on 2/22 which is coincidentally an angel number, and my apartment is number 22… thus an ethereal theme was born. People came dressed in their interpretation of ethereal (I was told there was a lot of googling that had to be done) and I had glitter for everyone to put on (envision a bunch of boys wearing rhinestones and glitter… perfect.) I always like to add some sort of supplemental flavor to the theme, I ordered rare angel rubber duckies to sit on the ledge of my bathtub and we printed out various angelic ethereal quotes to put in a bowl for guests to take as a party favor. All in all it was just whimsical enough without being too much. 

Angelina: A party is a party with or without a theme, but having something predetermined that sets the tone for your guests makes it feel communal and exciting before the event’s even started. For the days leading up to Saturday, I listened to ethereal music (think Cocteau Twins, Shygirl, Magdalena Bay, Tamaryn). I bought Urban Decay Moondust from Sephora to glitter my eyes and texted my boyfriend a picture of Jacob Elordi wearing a white tank top and angel wings in Saltburn, hoping he’d get the hint (which he did, sans angel wings). All of our guests looked angelic and beautiful and let me put rhinestone stickers on their faces—even our straight male friends who typically don’t subscribe to Things Like That. It was EUPHORIC!

Unexpected friends becoming friends 

Emily: The thing about Angelina and me is that we are friends with a lot of different types of people which usually results in a gorgeous, chaotic, hilarious guest list. I relish in the introduction of friends from different little pockets of my life and hearing that they hit it off and had a great conversation. I can’t imagine a world where a loose acquaintance from work doesn’t become friends with someone I randomly met in the bathroom line at Sauced in the East Village. I invited a few girls from Substack on Saturday (heyyyy

Kate Snyder

,

Ryann Stutz

,

Julia Harrison

) and had so many different people come up to me saying that had fabulous conversations with all of them. The ability to expand people’s circles is such a gift!!!!!!!!!!

Angelina: I love hearing about who talked to whom the next morning. The beautiful thing about a house party is that (hopefully) everyone feels some sense of security because (hopefully) everyone knows at least one person in common. It’s wonderful to watch new friendships unfold and know as a host that you played some small part in that. Everyone should have more opportunities to make new friends!

A “bit of the night” goes a long way

Angelina: An important part of every party is having some sort of bit or conversation piece or gimmick that everyone can relate to. This can come in the form of a question (like Sam’s “What’s in for this year?”) or a food item (such as my homemade cookies which apparently everyone was expecting on Saturday and I hadn’t made) or a party favor like custom matchboxes. For our party on Saturday, however, our conversation piece was Emily’s ice-filled bathtub, which we had stocked with rosé from Lantern Beverages, an alcohol brand owned by a friend of a friend who graciously sponsored us with what’s described on the Lantern website as “magical beverages from around the world.” Let me tell you — they were quite magical. Our best girl friends arrived early to catch up and gossip and take pictures of each other and most importantly, for lack of a better term, pre-game. “What’s this?” they all asked upon entering the apartment, their eyes widening at the rosy pink bottles placed atop the ice in the bathtub. “IT’S LANTERNNNNN!” Emily and I kept yelling. This immediately became our bit of the night. Everyone was obsessed with the Lantern. Our best friend Anne coined, “Tonight we’re letting the Lantern do the talking,” early on in the evening, and from there, the night was a go.

Emily: Those Lantern drinks have permanently altered my brain for the better, I was chatting with our friend Valerie by the tub and she exclaimed, “These make me feel like I’m drunk at a high school party before a football game.” YEP! We let the Lantern take control from there. I clearly love a bit, and the thing about our friends is that that they COMMIT. As someone who can easily veer in taking things too seriously I find myself yearning for moments that bend the edges of our structured lives when the sole purpose is making everyone laugh and to remind ourselves that we can literally do whatever we want at all times. Another crowd favorite party bit of mine was one year for my birthday I made everyone little bags filled with one loose cigarette, one Twizzler (my favorite candy) and a condom… in retrospect kind of a crazy move on my part... may we all fall prey to the bit of a party.

You can finally wear that top that’s been in your closet for 6 years

Angelina: Another lovely aspect of a party is that it’s an excuse to wear something special. My story here is that in summer 2019 at the end of my internship, I bought a white lace Chloé top on sale from The Outnet with the intention of one day wearing it when I lived in New York full-time and was a Booked and Busy Girl with Places to Be. That top sat in my closet in my bedroom at my Mom’s house until last year when I rediscovered it and brought it to New York with me. It’s a poncho-type of structure that came with a camisole underneath, and the cami never fit quite right, so at the beginning of this year, I decided it was time to sell my beloved, never-worn, new-with-tags Chloé top. After my New-Year’s-Day-closet-cleanout, I had brought it to 2nd Street to sell along with a huge IKEA bag full of clothing. When I went back to see what 2nd Street had bought from the pile, they had taken pretty much everything but the Chloé top. “I can take the camisole, but this poncho part is too delicate and too expensive. You should just keep it,” said the store manager Dakotah. “You’ll wear it, trust me,” he said. I trusted him. I brought the top back to my apartment and tried it on again, realizing it was just the camisole that I never liked. When Emily decided to make this party an angel party, I knew it was time for the Chloé top. When I lift my arms with the top on, the sleeves look like angel wings. 2/22 was the perfect excuse. I felt like an angel.

Emily: I don’t think that anyone who knows or reads me is surprised that I find the experience of dressing for a party to be the most gorgeous moments on earth. It is an excuse to wear something absolutely fabulous and ridiculous that you would never wear to a bar or restaurant. The weeks leading up to a party I let the question of what I will wear sit in the back of my mind, I go through various combinations in my closet and think about how I want to feel. I believe that our clothes hold energy and memories which is why I rarely get rid of anything I wear to a memorable party, it is all important parts of my archive! For angel party I had a vision of wearing a long white skirt and mulled over what top I should wear that felt ethereal but also still Me. I came across this completely sheer silver strappy tank top and thought “YEP!” Throughout the night multiple people came up to me and said, “this is like your version of Carrie Bradshaw’s naked dress” to which I replied, “exactly.” Another pro of hosting a party is that you can wear minimal clothing in the comfort of your own home.

Overhearing insane one-liners

Angelina: There’s no better Notes app list than a Notes app list of party quotes. There’s also no better group chat discourse than the group chat discourse that occurs the morning after a great party. We’ve included some special examples at the end.

Emily: The most sanctimonious place on earth is a group chat on a Sunday morning after a party. I love just laying in my bed laughing uncontrollably at our recount of the insane things that happened the night before. I usually always end the day with a slightly too earnest, “I just love you guyssssss” text as my final party ritual.

Maybe meet the love of your life (or just your love of the the week)

Emily: I think about this line from Ryan O’Connell’s book Just By Looking at Him literally all the time,“Remember throwing parties for the sole reason of inviting your crush? Obsessed with being young.” I always make sure I have at least one crush coming to a party, sometimes two crushes but that can sometimes lead to a gladiator battle of the crushes that no one knows they are participating in. Only one can win! I always tell people that they can bring whoever to (WITHIN REASON) and to my single friends I always say, “feel free to invite your crush!” Mark my words, one day I will be at someone’s wedding who met at a bathtub ice party in apartment 22. 

Angelina: My boyfriend and I essentially started dating because of Emily’s last party… We had known each other for over a year and had been friends for a while, but at Emily’s housewarming party in September, after running around together all night, he finally asked me on a date the following week, and we’ve been dating ever since. I think parties are the best place to meet (or connect with) people because they’re low-stakes settings in which everyone shares at least a few things in common. Have a party!!!!! Invite your crushes!!!!!

We hope this inspires you to have a party just because !!! We will be having a Cake For Lunch party for all of you in New York in the Spring, details to come xoxo

Thank you for reading!!!! We love you!!!!!

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