Sep 26, 2016

A couple weeks ago I shared a fun Content Creators dinner and while I wanted to share every little thing I learned while hosting it, I didn’t really want to take away from the event itself.

Whenever I’ve seen lovely stylized dinners surrounded by cheese and wine I’ve always just assumed they were too much hassle and too expensive to deal with.  But I finally worked up the courage (and pinned enough on Pinterest) to take a step into hosting my own stylized dinner.

Collaborate.

This is the easiest and most fun part of hosting a dinner! You not only get to hang out with fun creative people like yourself, you also get to cut all the costs + efforts in half.

Megan and I have collaborated before, so we were pretty used to each other.  (Check out our first post together – it’s still one of my favorites.)  I would suggest maybe not collaborating on a big event for your first time working together.  But find a local blogger or photographer and start making connections.  Meet them for coffee, take photos with them and build a relationship.  Once you get comfortable and get a long lob out the idea of a stylized dinner to them.

Play with greenery.

Endless amount of florals make just about anything pretty, though they also make just about any budget implode.  Rather than focusing on stockpiling as many flowers as your table can hold, try buying more fresh greenery.  Greenery is much less expensive and often is the perfect way to subtlety enhance a table setting. 

If you can’t go without at least some florals (hey I get it!) then just buy a handful of garden roses or some highly underrated blush carnations.  Even just a couple of these florals can make a big impact.

Keep it simple.

I was soooo tempted to buy out the entire decor section of World Market + a couple different stores, but with a strict budget I had to be a bit more mindful of what I was purchasing.  A new table runner + cloth napkins + art print were all I needed to make a stylistic setting.  I made sure that anything I bought would ultimately be used in my day to day life.

And keep the menu simple as well.  Cooking for a group of people is a bit stressful and a well arranged cheese plate takes little to no time put together.

DIY.

Pretty self explanatory, I know, but try to think a bit outside of the box.  Megan and her husband actually built a large table top for us since neither of us had a large enough table in our homes.  (My kitchen is  t i n y  and a small table plus two chairs is about all I can fit.)

So if you are thinking I can’t hold a dinner I don’t have a “____” …. make it 🙂

Pretty photos aside, I absolutely loved hosting this dinner! It was so fun to get a group of local creatives together and finally put some faces to names.  Hosting is a bit intimidating for the unpracticed, so my best advice is to keep it simple and small.

Have you ever hosted or created a stylized dinner?

xo Kelsey