Lovely "LOVE" Luncheon

I KNOW! I am SOOOO behind in posting on this blog. It's sad really. But I wanted to share what I've been doing that's been keeping me too busy to post.

Back in September, a friend of mine {TRACY LOVE}, called and asked if she could hire me to help out with her sons wedding luncheon. HECK YES!! I LOVE party planning & decorating. It is one of my favorite things. And to think...I could get paid for it!

Well...OF COURSE I'd be interested in that.

The wedding was to be the Friday before Thanksgiving (11.16.13). Best of all, the wedding planner in charge of the reception was my freind Shauna!! So excited to work on the wedding plans with her.

You see, there is a back story to Shauna & I. We had both been in charge of the Multi-Stake LDS prom that our stakes did together. I was in charge of it in 2010 for Peoria North Stake. She in 2011 for Glendale North Stake. So we had gotten to know each other pretty well from that. :) However, we had never had the chance to work together. So I was thrilled to be working with her on this wedding. She on the reception for the brides family and I, the luncheon for the grooms family.

 

I wish I could take credit for the theme of the wedding but I couldn't...it was all Shauna & I just followed her lead. So what was the theme? Fall done in METALLICS. She had the vision of pumpkins & leaves all painting in beautiful metallic colors. LOVED IT!! 

Since I was doing the luncheon. My decor was much more casual than the reception that followed. But I still wanted it to coordinate with the reception theme. Sooo...how did I dress it down? With one of my favorite things...BURLAP of course.

Shauna & I used all the same color theme...red, black, white & metallics. But I added in burlap, to keep the luncheon much more casual.
Being that we live in the "Valley of the Sun." I suggested that we have the luncheon outside. We held it in a ramada at a church building in our stake and we could not have asked for more beautiful weather.

I set the tables up in a "U" with the Bride, Groom and their parents sitting at the hea d table. I used white table clothes as the base. Topped with cranberry toppers and then burlap runners going down each table. We placed bunches of metallic pumpkins down the table as centerpieces.

Here is a look at the serving table. Instead of burlap runners, I just placed smaller burlap toppers on the serving table to cover up the white table clothes & soften where the cranberry toppers met each other.

I placed a large grouping of the metallic pumpkins in the center as the centerpiece.

We served the food out of CASUAL platters and baskets. I wrapped mason jars with burlap & glued on a metallic leaf to serve the silverware out of.
Cute!

The only table I actually "set" with place settings was the Bride & Grooms "head" table. Again, the centerpiece was a grouping of metallic pumpkins. I put a large white pumpkin in the center with a large "L" on it for there last name of "LOVE."

 

 

At each place setting, I had white lace doily as the place mat with a clear plastic plate on it. I also had a name card, silverware wrapped in a napkin {that I tied with burlap ribbon & metallic leaf}, & and mason jar for them to drink out of.

I think my favorite thing was the name cards :)

Turned out so dang cute!!

To decorate the actual Ramada. All we did was tie up bunches of will branches & fall leaves with burlap & bronze ribbon to all the pillars of the Ramada. It was all it needed I think to pull that little bit of fall into the space. And although it was countless hours of work {spray painting pumpkins & leaves, wrapping/tying silverware, & numerous trips to Michael's & Hobby Lobby}, I had a BLAST putting it all together.

So grateful for the opportunity my friend Tracy gave me to do it!!