Elaborately garbed performers on pedestals and on horseback greeted guests as they approached the Stamford party tents near the 72nd Street entrance. During the cocktail hour, abstract designs and human faces were projected on round screens hanging from the tent’s roof. Black fabric-covered tallboys crisscrossed with red plastic laces held arrangements of black-painted peppers, poppy pods, kangaroo pods, and other uninviting-to-the-touch foliage. Laurence Craig Catering offered an array of 13 different passed hors d’oeuvres, including pigs in a blanket, zucchini pancakes, crab cakes, and wild mushroom empanadas.

As guests moved into the dining tent, white-gloved human arms gestured and grabbed at them from behind walls of white fabric, creating the illusion the walls were alive. In the dining room, Matthew David Events went for a nostalgia-meets-glamour look: Over the dance floor hung a massive chandelier made from drugstore-variety children’s plastic Halloween masks with light-up eyeholes. Centerpieces included crystals and gems, rhinestone jewelry, and sparkling glitter, as well as earthy materials like moss, branches, and shiny pebbles—and red-manicured, bejeweled, disembodied skeleton arms c.phping martinis for extra creepiness. On the stage, the Starlight Orchestra performed classic and contemporary dance hits.

Laurence Craig’s dinner menu included roasted and caramelized shallot flan, porcini crusted beef filet and braised beef short rib, and Yukon gold potato and horseradish cannelloni. The guests who spared any room for dessert enjoyed berry crisp and Tahitian vanilla ice cream ornamented with a chocolate skeleton.

—Alesandra Dubin

Read our coverage of last year’s ball…

Read our coverage of the 2002 ball…