Theme: The Crate Escape

Location: The Rainforest Retreat

Year: 2021

Art: Paul McGhee

Invite Backstory:

We had been locked inside for 2 years with Covid so this was the breakout party - the Crate Escape. This was a play on the Great Escape that one of the Smartsheet Sales Engineers brainstormed - his idea was to turn the artichoke into a motorcycle chassis but it was a bridge too far for my sketching skills. But the theme was a keeper.

To make each invitation unique, we found miniature colored bandaids on Etsy and put one on each of the Artichokes leaf arms where she had her Covid shot.

To get the idea of her busting out of Covid with great vigor, we gave her motion lines, slanted the text and made the description block go up and to the right.

I got overconfident when I proofed the final draft and didn’t catch that I had used ‘escape the crate’ vs. ‘the crate escape’ (below). I had to reprint them because I’m not about to use a second tier theme with my Artichoke Madness Invitees!

Party Highlights

This party marks the debut of a new and great party tradition - the preparty for travelers. Friends start to plan Northwest summer vacation trips around the Artichoke party and we found ourselves on the deck with a bunch of travelers the evening before the party eating pizza, tapping kegs and doing a little pre-party taste testing in a relaxed settings. Super fun!

We brought back fancy Human Foosball and continued the usual supsects - Slippery Slide, trampoline, basketball. Alex the Chef starts to kick things in overdrive (see proposed menu below) and adds these Grilled Artichoke halves that he first soaks in garlic oil and herb marinator which turn out to be mind- blowingly good.

Great crowd, beautiful weather, everyone excited for Covid respite, one for the ages.