Autumn garden parties – Harvest to Halloween

You can feel it in the air. You can tell by the quality of the light. A new season is on the way. And autumn garden parties are almost here, along with the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. It’s all change – but do you really need to stash your garden furniture until spring?

As it turns out, there’s plenty of opportunity for outdoor fun with friends and family to enjoy over the next couple of months. Let’s take a look at cool things to celebrate outdoors this autumn, and the garden entertainment equipment you need to make it happen.

Events to celebrate outdoors in autumn

How about holding your own harvest festival?

It’s an ancient tradition, and some of us still celebrate the harvest being brought in. It’s an excellent excuse to start a fun new autumn garden parties tradition at your place. All over the world, harvest festivals are held to say thank you to the universe, to nature, or to a god, for a successful annual crop. But the thanks spill over into an appreciation for all of the good, happy and positive things in our lives, including the people we love and care for.

As you can imagine, a DIY harvest festival is all about the food. When you’ve invested in an outdoor smoker, a BBQ, a chiminea to cook on and heat the space, or one of our enormous all-singing, all-dancing outdoor ovens, this is where outdoor cuisine really comes into its own.

Think about holding your harvest feast as close to the full moon as possible, like they did in the olden days, or just pick an afternoon or evening with decent weather. If you don’t fancy cooking up a storm, maybe each of your guests could bring some food so everyone contributes? It’s all about community, an event to share.

Have spooky Halloween fun in your garden – Or celebrate the Day of the Dead

Halloween is short for All Hallow’s Eve. ‘Hallow’ is an ancient word meaning a spirit or ghost. Many Halloween traditions originate in ancient Celtic harvest festivals like the Gaelic festival Samhain, which may have been ‘christianised’ many centuries ago.

Whatever the origin Halloween has changed a lot, even since the 1970s. If you’re old enough to have been around back then you’ll remember there was no Trick or Treating in the UK. It was an American thing. Now we do it here and the Halloween industry has grown to massive proportions. And that means it’s a brilliant excuse to celebrate with your best people, great fun for every age.

Pets join in, too. Apparently 30 million Americans spent an estimated $480 million on Halloween costumes for their pets in 2018 alone. The most popular dress-up costumes for pets are pumpkins, hot dogs, and bumblebees. Totally mad – but cute!

Go for gold and celebrate the Mexican Day of the Dead instead if you fancy something spirit-led but wildly different. It’s a curious custom where the dead are remembered with joy and love rather than fear and dread. The event is colourful, vibrant, lively and loud, a free and frank celebration of the people who’ve gone before us. If you want to honour the dead while celebrating the wonder of life, it’s perfect.

Autumn garden parties – Celebrate World Space Week in October

World Space Week takes place in early October, but you can hold an outdoor stargazing party any time you like through autumn, when the skies are often beautifully clear. You can all download a stargazing app on your phone to identify the stars, planets and other marvels you can see up there. It can be a freaky experience, looking up and realising you’re nothing more than a tiny spec on a teeny planet in the middle of a space so vast it’s impossible to imagine. It’s enough to drive a person to drink – so have plenty of it available!

Maybe go for a starry theme, dress up, make space-inspired food. Or just sit back in your uber-comfy rattan-effect garden dining set and mull over life, the universe, and everything else with your besties.

Party late into the evening on Bonfire Night

When Guy Fawkes and his gang tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in November 1605 he had no idea he’d become so famous. Every year in the UK we celebrate his gunpowder plot on 5th of the month by building massive bonfires, making a ‘guy’ to burn on top, and letting off fireworks.

In Lewes, East Sussex, the entire town fills with more than 80,000 people who enjoy processions, huge bonfires, and different kinds of guy every year, as seven different bonfire societies doing their thing. One year back in the ’80s the guy they burned was Margaret Thatcher, in 2021 they burned an effigy of Dominic Cummings. You get the picture! How about making a guy of a person you’d like to burn in a ceremonial manner? 😉

For those of us who hate loud bangs, including pets and wildlife, you can buy silent fireworks. For some reason the stunning explosive light effects are so much more dramatic, strange, and magical when there’s no big bang to accompany them.

Celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Lights

Diwali is an ancient Hindu, Jain and Sikh festival celebrated in autumn. It’s all about marking the victory of light over darkness, and of good over evil. The magnificent Golden Temple is richly decorated for Diwali in the city of Amritsar and all over India families light candles and fireworks, give gifts, and make delicious food to celebrate the holiday.

The joy is in the name. Light up your entire garden with solar lights, strings of LED bulbs, tea lights and candles, invite the people you love, set a fire for the magic of real flames, and say a big thank you for the simple fact of being alive.

Autumn garden parties deserve great quality garden furniture

You’ll want to do all this in comfort and style to keep your guests happy. And that’s where our marvellous garden furniture comes in. Whatever you choose, it’ll be beautifully designed, made to last, and carefully crafted from the best quality materials. Which of these will help you create party magic this autumn?

• Barbecues of all kinds plus oodles of cool BBQ accessories
• Outdoor ovens and stoves, large and small
• Food smokers and pizza ovens
• Chimineas in clay and metal, small to XL
• Outdoor dining sets
• Garden sofas
• Garden chairs, swing chairs, and garden lounge chairs
• Outdoor bar stools, bistro sets, and balcony sets
• Firebowls, fire baskets, and fire pits
• Garden shade and garden privacy
• Garden storage

PS. Would you also like to read our Garden Furniture Buying Guide? It’s full of handy insights and inspiration.