Birthday Dinner Party

This week I hosted a small dinner party in celebration of my birthday.  I am officially 32 years old and up until this week I had never thrown a proper dinner party.  I like to use the excuse of my birthday to do pretty much anything I want to.  Sometimes it's skydiving, sometimes it's a trip to Hawaii, sometimes it's a formal black and white dinner party in my back yard.

There is a lot of planning involved in a dinner party.  There was the guest list.  I'm sorry I could not invite everyone I care about and wanted to invite.  Then there was the menu, I needed an experts opinion on this one so I called my sister Merry, the dragon tamer and mother extraordinaire, she helped me find exactly what I wanted.

The Menu
Provençal Lamb, baked with fresh tomatoes, rosemary, thyme, drizzled with honey
New Potatoes with Lemon and Saffron
Fresh Steamed Asparagus with Butter and Sea Salt
Artisan Bread
Italian Cream Sodas, available flavors Raspberry, Irish Cream, Pomegranate, French Vanilla
Dessert: Blueberry-Peach Upside-Down Cake

I am proud to say I made everything completely from scratch.  I even chopped up the fresh rosemary sprigs (no bottled spices here!).

the lamb just before it went into the oven

Then there was the decorations. My friend Shannon gave me the idea of doing a Black and White theme, which I loved.  My friend Tasha ran wild with this theme and started sending me ideas of things we could do.  Both of them helped to make the decorations ahead of time.  

we made tissue paper puff balls

we made string balls by dipping it in glue and starch and wrapping it around a balloon to dry

these string balls were attached together for a hanging chandelier above the table

we made smaller tissue paper puff balls for the napkin holders

Several other decorations were donated by my sisters Melanie and Sandie, both of which made excellent suggestions for things I could do with this B&W theme.

And then there was the mishap.  No proper party will happen exactly according to plan, right?  We have, or rather I should say had, an old wooden table in our backyard.  We use it for food when we eat outside but mostly it sits there covered by a tarp to protect it from mother nature.  I made an attempt to move the table and it seemed a little weird, so I decided it best to wait for my brothers help.  Once Tommy arrived we agreed it would be best to lift the table by its legs to move it.  The very moment we picked up the table the entire thing fell to pieces.  I mean it shattered.  It was actually rather laughable and I wish I would have thought to snap a picture of the pile of table parts before we hauled it away.  Luckily Tommy had enough foresight to make a tabletop for his Senior project about 5 years ago.  He pulled the legs off the broken table and nailed them into the new tabletop and voilà, a table was made.  Thanks for saving my party Tommy!

To fancy things up a bit my handsome brother Tommy and his beautiful and clever wife Carly came to be our servers for the evening.  They helped with the set up, ran errands for me, served the food, ran the Italian soda bar, and generally looked really good in their black and white outfits.

I pulled out and polished the silver for this special occasion.  I happen to love silver and have inherited a few beautiful pieces from both of my grandmothers that were in use for this night.

the silver water pitcher

With the small table incident we were running a little behind schedule and were not quite ready when my guests arrived.  It didn't matter as I have fabulous friends who all jumped right in and helped out.  We quickly had things pulled together and finally sat down to eat.  

Shannon pouring the water

As the dinner progressed the sun slowly vanished letting the twinkle lights and tea lights shine brighter to create a beautiful ambiance.  This was enhanced with the handsome voice of Josh Groban singing soft music in the background. 

*almost every photo by Tasha.

I learned a lot about throwing a party.  I learned that it's terribly fun to do, but in doing everything that needs to be done I wore myself out and was pretty tired by the time I finally got to sit down and eat.  Still I'm glad I did it and enjoyed how it turned out.  Thanks to my friends who were able to make it and celebrate with me.