Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Putting the "Art" back into Party!


Oh how I love to throw a party! And this has been the season for parties! With all the babies popping up around here, we've been able to have lots of showers. I have had the pleasure and blessing to be able to co-host several showers at the church for the different future Mom's to be. And now we are having one for Kelly at my house!

It seems now a days, people stray from the "fancy" parties and it really makes me sad. More days than not, we're eating pizza off paper plates as we half sit half stand through the meal, so that we can once again rush off to make it to such and such activity (trust me I know, that was tonight's menu).


I am a member of a club here in town (that is made up mostly of women twice as old as me) who still enjoy entertaining to the fullest! I have grown to appreciate the art of entertaining. Not only the creative aspects of themes and decorations, but the social aspect of being a truly gracious hostess. We have become so focused on making things "easy" that we have forgotten that the reason for opening up our home is to make our guests feel special.

I recently opened up our house for a social gathering of these ladies (about 40, give or take a few) from my club. We had a blast. We ate delicious food (mostly home-made by said Ladies) served on beautiful polished silver and crystal platters, sipped beverages from glass goblets and wiped our puckered lips on cloth napkins. We called each other "dahling" and said things like "oh, how divine" and well, OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. But you have to admit, sometimes it's nice to just sit around and chat about politics, religion, family and life over a nice plate of hors d'oeuvres.

So I mentioned to one of my friends from the club about some of our upcoming parties and she invited me to come "shopping" at her house. So Kimberly and I met her at her house and we literally went shopping for all the beautiful dishes we needed to make a picture perfect party! This woman is truly amazing and oh so generous. She had a closet full of glass dishes. Luncheon plates, hors d'oeuvres plates, dessert plates, cups, saucers, polished silver, glass goblets, crystal platters, you name it she's got it and enough to serve well over 70 people at any given time. But what is even more amazing than that is how spectacularly organized everything is. She knows exactly what she has, where it is stored how many and what pieces will match it! All I can say is I want to be her when I grow up!

5 comments:

Kelly Spezzano said...

Well, Dahling, I hope you keep those magnificantly divine dishes away from the pregnant ladies at the party as they do tend to have a bad case of the dropsies! Hee Hee- I am excited to see what you all came up with! Sounds like some fancy footwork has been going on in the BAM children's book section (you know- the one I was KICKED OUT OF BY MY OWN TWO SISTERS???) :)

Anonymous said...

It was a truely spectacular site! I wanted to take everything she showed us. I kept trying desperately to re-arrange the menu in my head so that we could use all those pieces.

I am all in favor in hosting another "fancy for no reason, except to be fancy" party and use all those pieces that I was drooling over.

What Kerry didn't mention in this blog, is that many pieces were found at garage sales for almost nothing and the majority of the other pieces were all carefully purchased and selected while on sale and clearance. Amazing!

Dani said...

I like that kind of thing, but I'm not very refined for them. I'm the person wandering around wondering when to eat and when to drink and what fork to use. :)

His Mercy Endureth Forever said...

Oh yeah and because most of the pieces were found at yard sales and what not, it is all dishwasher safe (to make for "easier" clean up afterwards).

Brittany said...

AWESOME! I love it!