In love with the Wild West, the beach or a special season of the year? These clever ideas will inspire you to personalize your party with flair.
By: Kristen FinelloSpring Fling
Location and time: Choose a botanical garden, rose garden or arboretum, says Clark. She also recommends having your event in the middle of the day to take advantage of beautiful weather.
Cocktail: Add raspberries to flutes of champagne for a special toast.
Décor: Get a fresh, clean feel with table linens in shades of yellow and green and centerpieces of tulips and daffodils with baby grasses worked in. Or go for shades of pink, with centerpieces of roses, lilacs and peonies in moss-covered urns.
Menu: Serve a light lunch or a tea featuring a mixed-green salad with citrus-lime dressing, chilled fruit soups and finger sandwiches. If you opt for an evening affair, lamb is a great entrée choice. Highlight your theme by offering a selection of flavored lemonades and teas. Serve the lemonade in sugar-rimmed glasses for a pretty presentation.
Dessert: A hatbox-style cake with ribbons in your colors, topped by a gorgeous sugarpaste rose or peony, makes a sweet statement.
Favor: Try monogrammed packets of seeds or bulbs that guests can plant at home.
Summer Beach Bash
Invitations: Send them in small bottles with sand, shells and colorful paper drink umbrellas, suggests Robinson. Guests will definitely get the message!
Cocktail: David Tutera recommends his Blue Wave, made with gin, blue Curaçao, Cointreau and club soda.
Décor: Create an aisle with colored sand. Also, paint different types of shells in your wedding colors and use them as place-card holders; cluster them around your centerpieces as well. Tuck candles into hurricane lamps. When it comes to colors, go with shades of blue and white or silver, or vibrant tropical hues like pink, fuchsia and orange.
Special touch: Attach your programs to Frisbees that are distributed to guests as they arrive at the ceremony.
Menu: Choose chilled soups and grilled steak, fish or oysters. Or go with steaming pots of lobsters and corn on the cob.
Dessert: Try a breezy take on tradition: Decorate your wedding cake with sea-blue ribbons and top it with painted shells.
Favor: Treat guests to personalized inflatable beach balls or brightly colored beach towels.
