Thanksgiving {the-night-before} Cocktail Party

Today’s post is really fun!  Do you remember our darling Woodland Forest Birthday Party post last week?  Well, when Patrick’s mom hired us to do his birthday party, she also threw another request our way…..to plan a concept for a night-before-Thanksgiving cocktail party for friends and family.  She wanted something that looked rustic, yet modern, and something that wouldn’t involve preparing a whole lot of food.  Now here’s the kicker…..she wants to use the same items we used for Patrick’s birthday party for this party.  Intrigued?!  Read on to see how we re-vamped this child-friendly party to create a savvy adult-friendly cocktail party.

The first stop in my planning process was to head to my local fabric store to look for color and pattern inspiration.  (always one of my favorite places!)  I found a fabulous, fall-color, zig zag pattern reminiscent of a Missoni print.  Our fiesta zig zag collection is one of my favorites and most popular….so once I saw this fabric, I knew we could update that collection for Fall.  A mustard yellow, cranberry, brown and taupy-grey color palette emerged and off I went.  The invitation and return address label is above…..and that was just the beginning!

To show the client our concept, I pulled together a quick “photo shoot”.  Using the items I had purchased for her son’s birthday party, and a few other items bought locally, I staged these layouts using the same food that I had ordered for the birthday party (obviously, most of this is just a “stand-in” for placement).

The cocktail party was quickly given a “champagne & sweets” theme, and I focused on giving our hostess two unique table settings.  The first being a champagne bar – using a runner of our inspirational zig zag fabric atop a crisp white tablecloth, I used a woven vase cover for the centerpiece of berries branches, a modern hurricane with wood base, and woven candlesticks in varying heights to create an elevated display of champagne glasses. A coordinating sign completed our look!

We also created coordinating wine bottle labels, not only to further brand the party but also for the hosts to place on wine bottles to give guests as party favors.

The dessert table concept takes on a similar look with the berry centerpiece, hurricanes, and zig zag fabric.  I used the wood boxes from Patrick’s party to create stands to elevate the goodies.  Coordinating candy jar tags, cupcake toppers, bite size sweets, fabulous designer cookies by Allyson Jane, and a couple jars of candy (see the woodland party post for the full candy line-up pictured here) completed the look.

Here are a few of our key concepts for this project:

Amazon and WH Hostess are preferred sponsors of The Party Dress.

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