Post #378464 by BrickHorn on Tue, May 6, 2008 9:17 AM

On 2008-05-06 06:38, tiki in tx wrote:
Greetings!

I'm brand new to this forum, but I've been a lover of tiki culture for most of my life. My fiance and I are getting married next May in Austin and are having a tiki-themed reception. Unfortunately, as you all know, Austin is devoid of tikiness, so we're having to decorate a neutral space outselves. We were going to try to have our rehearsal dinner on the Kon Tiki party boat (http://www.kontikithefunboat.com/), but it only holds 35 people.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas for local tiki resources, please me know. I just ordered twelve blowfish lamps from Thailand to hang above each table at the reception. I'm thinking of ordering a couple of tikis from tikis4u.com.

Congratulations on your engagement. As far as Austin tiki resources goes, what can I say? There really aren't any. If you're looking to buy wood tikis, Great Outdoors on South Congress has a few. But they are expensive and generally of the more cartoonish palm-tree variety.

Regarding the rehearsal dinner, have you considered renting out the Hula Hut? It's probably the most tiki-ish place in town. Or you could rent out Headhunters on Red River, which still has a fairly sound tiki feel. But you will have to train their bartenders on how to properly make tiki drinks, and I would suggest providing your own music.

If you're looking to decorate the place yourself, I've seen a bunch of deals on cheap, mass-produced wooden tiki masks on eBay lately. Something like $30 for 5-6 masks. They aren't the best-looking tikis in the world, but they're better than the plastic ones from the party stores and, given the right mood lighting, might not look half bad. Just search "carved tiki" on eBay and browse the selections.

[ Edited by: BrickHorn 2008-05-06 09:18 ]