My Birthday Soirée

This year I wanted to truly celebrate my birthday surrounded by friends and flowers!

Flowers, flowers, flowers.

Did I mention pink hues, my Italian lamps and candlelight, too?

Since moving into Citrus Court I’ve dreamed of a dimly lit, bougainvillea backed dinner party al fresco in the cozy courtyard that inspired me to name our new home. A relatively simple tablescape, with good lighting and well appointed bouquets to match, fresh from the flower market that morning.

See my inpso board below.

In fact the entire day was an absolute dream. Despite waking up at 5am to procure the most perfect shade of pink peonies in late August, a privilege I didn't know existed . It was a dream to get to do everything I love in one day; setting up with Parker was honestly the best part.

It's safe to say I came back from the flower market with too many flowers. My tips for your next visit here. But it was a good problem to have. And making the arrangements was so fun, more on how I created them here. Parker even made his own bouquet with the multitude of leftovers. I choose all my favorites: pink peonies, ranunculus, Juliet roses, dahlias and the pièce de résistance, amaranthus caudatus!

I used chatGBT to get specifics on the best pedastal vase size and arrangement height for my table of ten. Using floral foam and tape I secured each stem so well and it truly made all the difference.

I purposefully kept this table realitvely simple, letting the floral arrangements, murano glass table lamps and mutlitude of tapered ivory candles shine. I opted for an elegant place card over an elobrate menu to keep everything clear, I really wanted the candlelit glow to take center stage and be the thing my guest and myself remembered most about the evening.

And I am happy to report, it did.

Everyone seemed very happy sipping on champagne, caviar and homemade focaccia during the cocktail hour. And after taking our seats we immediately starting devouring the lemon chicken, short ribs and au gratin potatoes prepared by Arthur. I was pleasantly surprised by how my lemon merringe dome cake turned out after leaving a digital sketch with a bkery I had never previously worked with.

Thank goodness they ended up surpassing my wildest expectations.

Especially the days following with my morning coffee!

Most special, however, was the toast Arthur gave and the seating arrangement I made, placing all the ladies on my end of the table and letting the guys entertain Arthur. I have never done this for dinner parties before but I am so happy I did because who wants to retell the same stories to their partner! Everyone was laughing and having the best time and didn't leave until 2am, which I must credit to my fabulous seating chart and romantic lighting.

Shop the Soirée