I was hired to work this past Friday at an event in honor of the first day of Gordon’s new President. The theme was a simple Italian dinner which was hosted on the large screened in porch of my former supervisor at Gordon College, Dan Tymann. Dan’s wife, Andrea, supplied the tables, chairs, plates and napkins and it was up to work to design the rest of the event.
I designed a menu card so that the guests would know what to expect for the evening. It listed the appetizers, main course and dessert. My friend Jade (the one with the fabulous wedding invitation) suggested using grapes as the graphic to symbolize Italy for the evening’s visual pieces.
I set the table with three square and rectangular vases filled with white tulips from Trader Joe’s. Normally I have such great luck getting flowers from there but this batch was a little more floppy than usual. I wanted to do something more interesting with the breadsticks than just put them in a basket with a napkin, so I put them in square / rectangular vases to add additional visual interest to the table.
The appetizers were delish and super simple. I cut up grape stems into managable pieces and then put grape tomatos and marinated balls of mozzeralla onto toothpicks. If you ever need a simple and relatively inexpensive appetizer the Caprese salad on toothpicks works well!
The drinks were simple as well, I used these pitchers from Pottery Barn and filled them with lemonade and sweet tea.
Ciao! (Did you like my Italian reference there? :))
Grapes for Grapevine Road, too, of course . . .
Thanks for the Caprese Salad on toothpicks tip. Love how that all looks together on the platter and I know it tastes good. . . . And, lastly, love your new patio furniture. Looks both handsome and comfy. I can imagine you’ll be living outside now. . . .
nfm