Thanksgiving Decor

Shout out to Towbin cause she's the only one who still reads this blog :)

This year for Thanksgiving Michael and I hosted both of our families - ten people (and one dog) total. I wanted to do some special decor this year so I decided to buy a chalkboard and make my own art.  It's all over the blogisphere so why not jump on the bandwagon?

I ordered a chalkboard from Restoration Hardware (this was their small!!). And I found this design on Pinterest.

Totally daunting at first, but I jumped right in.  At first, I looked up how to create a chalkboard design via Google, but to tell you the truth it got a lot complicated, i.e. drawing quadrants, using a projector, etc. so I just decided to free hand it.  I turned the board on it's side first.

While I did this, my little helper seemed very confused.

 
Once I completed the 'Thanks,' I turned the board right side up.

And then added the corn stalk.

Then I propped the finished product up on the make shift bar.

Everything looks better on Instagram.

By Thursday, the bar looked like this.

In order to entertain ten people, I ordered a farm table and cross back chairs from a place in Franklin - Southern Events. I highly recommend them.

And when the table was set, it looked like this.

Not too shabby huh?

The AMAZING Nordstrom Gala

Fully stocked bar in almost every corner, woodward reserve for Anne Nicholas and champagne with blackberries for me, delicious buffet and passed h'ors d'oeurvres, miniature mojito jello shots with a fresh mint sprig on top and served in a amuse bouche spoon, a girl named Tesi who moved from Chicago to Nashville only two months ago and her job is to make sure we are happy.  Fascinators, Oliver Peoples shades, Burberry shades that fold up!, sparkly dresses, fox fur boleros, petite wedding cakes outside the Gucci and Chanel boutiques, miniature champagne shots being passed around with white truffles, DJ and a band, live models who looked like mannequins so we had to play live or real? all night, and this is the only picture I took -  I could kick myself.

Isn't it pretty?  This is one of the miniature cakes outside Gucci and Chanel.

Croquet Shower!!

Remember this post?  Well we finally had the Croquet Shower for Jason and Corinne back in June.  And it went off swimmingly.  This is the invite we went with:

We were kinda nervous because it rained the entire day of the shower – and it’s kinda hard to have a croquet party indoors!  But, the weather cleared up by 4 and turned out to be perfect for an outdoor summer party.

Sarah mixing the Sangria (what makes it funny is that she’s pregnant, not that you can tell she's so teeny):

While the hostesses were setting everything up, the hosts were sitting in the TV room watching Vanderbilt baseball: 

Food display:

David and Joey trying to figure out how to set up the Croquet:

Clare brought her parents Croquet set that they bought at Harrod’s in London thirty years ago:

A heated game of Croquet:

Michael and Tim playing corn hole:

The Groom and Bride opening their gifts:

Las Paletas – Lime Mint and Strawberry:

The Groom looking quite dapper in his white attire:

Jason and his Groomsmen:

Bride and Groom with the hosts and hostesses:

Corinne and the hostesses:

Nice rain boots, huh?

Marchesa Fashion Show

Wow, I have gotten so far behind!  So as not to create one extra-long blog entry, I plan on posting a couple in a row.  Here’s the first of a few…

At the end of April, I attended the Symphony Fashion Show benefiting the Schermerhorn Center.  The fashion designer this year was Marchesa.  I have long loved Marchesa’s beautiful dresses, not that I expect to ever own one.  They don’t come cheap!  But, it was wonderful to attend a beautiful event where the Fall 2011 line was debuted in Nashville.  I captured so many shots that I chose only a few of my favorites to post here.

Samantha, me and Robinette during Cocktail Hour



Marchesa sign upon entering the Schermerhorn

The Runway

The Schermerhorn is beautiful all the time, but the lighting was especially magical that night.

The Dresses

The Finale

The Designers – Keren Craig and Georgina Chapman

The Entertainment – Faith Hill (who sounded positively amazing; I mean how could you not in the Schermerhorn)

Party Planning

Two of our good friends, Jason and Corinne are getting married this October, and we're helping to put together a shower to celebrate this June.  I've been getting a little bored at work this morning so I started looking for cute invitations, and came across so MANY CUTE ones that I thought I should share.

The theme is going to be a croquet/stock the bar party so we're looking for invitations that stay in line with that theme. 

This is a cute, simple croquet invite:

But we could also go the preppy route and do something like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this one:

And since I was just a-browsing, I came across a super cute party planning blog... look at this cute idea board for a bee themed shower:

It looks like she hasn't updated her blog in two years but everything is tagged with a theme, so it's easy to find inspirations for events!

Happy Monday!