Whether the rich of all rich are celebrating a wedding complete with wedding favours, a birthday, a grand opening or a party just to celebrate their existence; they like to spend literally millions of pounds. Imagine attending a party whereby you are literally laced in gold, sounds heaven. We have trawled through every single lavish party, become slight green-eyed monsters, and found the ultimate lavish parties in the world. Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on this…

Expo-how much?

Officially the most ridiculously priced party in the history of the world is known as Expo, based in Shaghai, the 2010 between May and October (some party). The theme of the exposition is ‘Better City – Better life’, signifying Shanghai’s new status as the ‘next great world city’. With more than 190 countries and 50 organisations registered to take part, it is the largest in the world. Attendees are expected to reach between 70 and 100 million people, making it the most popular exposition ever. It is indeed the biggest and oddest party you would have ever have had the privilege to be invited to. You may witness a mermaid show, robots who serenade you with robots and buildings shaped like apples and a rabbit, no this is not a scene from last night’s dream; this is real. How much is the estimated cost of this ridiculously long event, around £2.3 billion, the price to fulfil millions of people’s dreams. Shanghai underwent a makeover which cost more than the Beijing pre – Olympics makeover. With a new subway line, revamped waterfront and a new airline terminal, there is little wander the cost is so high. Although the question why the cost is so high is an interesting one and something which many may not have really noticed. Shanghai is attempting to resurrect the tradition of international gatherings, which started in London in the 1800s and is even the reason for the Eiffel Tower. The once event of the year slowly began to die down.

Off with a bang (and a whole lot of cash)

Think of one place which oozes expense, style, luxury and class, there is only really one place in the whole world which can give off such a persona, whilst truly making a name for itself over the past two decades: Dubai.

Therefore it is only fair to assume that Dubai would be on the list of the most luxury parties in the world. The Atlantis resort, based in Dubai celebrated the most expensive launch party, ever. While the rest of the world has been picking themselves up from the recession, Dubai has been going from strength to strength in terms of wealth and popularity. Costing £15 million, one may be a little disappointed if the party itself was anything but completely out of this world. If, like us, you are thinking where your invite was, then we are afraid to say that unless you earned the mega dough, you would not have even got a look in. More than 2,000 guests were invited including Janet Jackson, Sir Richard Branson, Lindsay Lohan and Robert De Niro. Feasting the night away on lobster and drinking only the best champagne they had to offer: Veuve Clicquot, the guests were certainly treated like royalty. Although we can all feel a little less envious, as being held in an Islamic country, the drinking bill was kept to an absolute minimal. Kylie Minogue was one of the entertainers, being paid a reported £1.5 million to release her vocal chords. Fireworks also provided part of the entertainment, or rather one million fireworks. Dubai is known to splash the cash, but this launch was huge, even for their standards. Meaning the next ridiculously big hotel launch will have to top Atlantis, a challenge some are more than willing to accept.

More than just a Birthday cake

Take the average adult birthday party: a few drinks (usually ending up with the lucky birthday person very drunk on the floor somewhere), a few mates, a nice meal and ending up at a club, costing about £200. Imagine celebrating your 50th birthday which will cost you $16 million…ouch. Even if we had that amount of money, the likelihood of throwing it away on an indulgent party may be a step too far. Not for the Sultan of Brunei, who spent millions on champagne and caviar and even flew the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson to perform three performances. He had 10,000 guests attend (who can have that many friends?), with the Prince of Wales turning up for the party.

Wedding wonderland

Weddings can be seen as the ultimate celebration of love for the couple, whilst in reality a massive drinking session for the rest of the friend’s of families. The average wedding in the UK costs about £15,000; with many couples saving up for years to achieve their dream wedding. If however you just so happen to be rich beyond your wildest dreams, £15,000 would barely make a dent in the cost of the cake let alone anything else.

The most expensive wedding of all time catered for all that Vanisha Mittal, daughter of the steel tycoon Laxmi Mittal could have ever wanted. Topping Forbe’s Billionaire Weddings, this wedding proved to be entirely magnificent. Costing £30 million, the wedding was luxury from the beginning to the end. The invitations alone were 20 pages packed in a silver box; whilst the accommodation was no other than a five-star hotel in Paris for 1,000 guests; the wedding itself lasted five days, with yet another incredible performance from Kylie Minogue.

Lagging behind are the Rooneys themselves, who may be rich and wonderful to the rest of the world, but are mere peasants to the Mittals, who, one can imagine, swim in luxury. Childhood sweetheats Wayne Rooney and Coleen Mcloughlin celebrated their special day on board a luxury ship, before staying in the five-star Bentley Hotel in Genoa. What could have possibly runined the couple’s big day? Rain. Torrential rain poured throughout their £5 million wedding; still it didn’t dampen their spirits, staying up until the early hours celebrating and spending lots of money.

Next time you arrange an ultimate celebration, you can think twice about re-mortgaging your home. You may not have millions in the bank, but that shouldn’t deter you partying like a star.

Well we have something coming to cheer up your post holiday blues: the Just Miniatures January sale!  That’s right soon we’ll have a wide range of discounts across our product range giving you unbeatable deals and offfers that will be just to good to miss.  So be sure to keep an eye out on the site for that.

Finally we here at Just Miniatures hope you had a great holiday and look forward to  a great 2010.

We came in this morning and found that a whisky miniature had fallen from one of the shelves and smashed on the floor. Not unusual in itself I guess but now consider that there is not a drop of whisky to be seen and the bottle has smashed in a really odd way. Furthermore, the bottle was inside a tin so shouldn’t have smashed in the first place.

We Googled our address and found that many many years ago a lady called Mrs Watson was killed in this road by a lightning strike. Freaky!

Looking forward to serving you this year and beyond!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All!

Wow, what a Christmas period we had this year. Once again we kept with tradition and beat the previous years results. This year we had literally thousands of Christmas orders, so many in fact that our warehouse was working around the clock and at weekends to ensure that we managed to ship all of the orders in time. Fantastic!

In the aftermath of the Christmas rush we are now busy tidying up and getting ready for the New Year when customers will start ordering Burns Supper Miniatures, Wedding Favour Miniatures, Birthday Miniatures Chocolates for all occasions, Bottled Beer, Ale and Cider for various different events including Stag-Do’s and many other events that fall within the calender.

We will of course update the Blog again in the new year so don’t forget to watch this space.

Thank you for your excellent support in 2008 and all the best for a great 2009.