parties

Easter Dinner Inspiration: Simple Steps to a Gorgeous Easter Dinner Table

Easter Dinner TablescapePhotography by Patrick Garrett Photography

Spring is such an exciting season for us here at Soireé LA. The soft colors, blooming flowers and the energy of the new inspired us to create a beautiful Easter tablescape that you can all replicate at home with just a few simple steps.

We started our table with vibrant green moss runners. In order to get the appropriate length for our table, we used two. Since the runners provide such a pop of color, we balanced the rest of the palette with  pale peach, white and just a hint of burgundy in the flower arrangements to add an unexpected pop of color! We also brought in tiny pops of my favorite color—a pale aqua blue—on the speckled eggs and accompanying Bar Cart vase to finish off the pastel palette.

Next, we decided to make chocolate bunnies from See’s Candies the focal point of the centerpieces instead of the traditional role of floral arrangements. We chose to make our florals into individual favors/decor that each dinner attendee could bring home with them. How great would it be to attend an Easter dinner and come home with an adorable bunny pot of flowers?

In order to make your Easter dinner table pop like this one, we recommend the following:

  1. Choose a color palette that speaks to the season and holiday.
  2. Utilize texture (i.e. moss runners, dried grass) and florals.
  3. Look for items around your house or easy spots like Target or the grocery store. You don’t have to spend a lot to get a beautiful result!
  4. Print simple menus and your guest’s names for an elevated presentation.

Get inspired from our our photos of our Easter dinner tablescape below!

Easter Dinner Tablescape
Easter Dinner Tablescape

Valentine’s Day Inspiration

 

Oh Valentine’s Day…it may have a complicated place in many people’s hearts, but what cannot be denied is that it’s fun to love “Love”! I’m not a big fan of red (unless it’s a pair of heels or a lipstick) but I swoon over a palette of pinks and pastels.

I love the idea of creating an intimate celebration by pulling a few treats out into the yard, or setting them up picnic-style in a local park.  A bottle of French Rosé or a Strawberry lemonade, some crackers and cheese, and some beautiful blooms set the tone for romance.

 

Handmade Valentines don’t have to be difficult- it really is the thought that counts! Here, I created a super simple detail with our Silhouette Cameo machine, drawing inspiration from those cute little candy conversation hearts. Fold a piece of paper in half, cut a half-heart shape and then write your own sayings to your loved one or friend.

Valentine’s Day is a holiday, right? So maybe skip dinner entirely and just eat dessert? Could these little jam filled shortbread cookies and mousse cake from Trader Joe’s be any cuter?! Dessert is perfectly displayed on a white marble cake stand- found for a steal at Target.

Lastly, let’s talk flowers…

As a floral designer, I get carried away with flowers- especially in early spring when it’s easy to find a profusion of multi-hued ranunculus, spray roses, and parrot tulips. However, the cost of flowers skyrockets in the days before Valentine’s Day, so if you just can’t bring yourself to pay the inflated prices, cut a single bloom from the garden, float it in a bowl of water and enjoy a bit of nature without the high price tag. Or, even better, go crazy like I did- then, take a ton of pictures and enjoy your flowers all year long!

Whether you want to just treat yourself, change Valentine’s to Pal-entine’s, or go all in for the romance, have a lovely Valentine’s Day!

 

 

Credits:

Linens: Linen Lenders

Flatware, Cheese board, Cake stand: Target

Flowers: (Moi) Soiree Event Design

Treats: Trader Joe’s

 

 

Keepin’ it “Real” for a Birthday Bash

What happens when you meet one of the nicest, most down-to-earth, and lovely clients, who wants to (for once in her life) have a Birthday party that’s ALL about her? You make her dream of a “Real Housewives” themed party come to life- that’s what happens!

We took Korin’s idea of a non-existent theme and made it reality by “branding” a  theme that made the Birthday girl the Real Housewife of View Park (where she lives). We used an ombre of blues and white to create a beautiful ambiance for her chic rooftop bash.

View More: http://jonathantantypephotography.pass.us/korinhuggins

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

A “Real Housewife” theme couldn’t be complete without an Orange County/Beverly Hills/New York City/Atlanta/DC/Miami styled Step and repeat backdrop. With Blue Carpet, of course.

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A special photoshoot styled after a well known photographer’s “Alter Ego” work was a dream come true for this Birthday Girl. We put it on display- gallery style-to show of her beautiful portraits.

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View More: http://jonathantantypephotography.pass.us/korinhuggins

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype

We kept the floral arrangements simple with beautiful, white oriental lilies & willow, but added a ribbon detail in our different ombres of blue. The linens added to the color scheme also, as we used 4 shades: pale, aqua, royal and navy blue.

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Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

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For the cocktail tables, a perfectly placed blue martini glass with a lily head was simple, yet stunning.

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Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

One of the most talked about pieces of decor, was our stunning paper rosette piece. We wanted a bold way to infuse the rooftop space with color and it really made an impact.

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The food was divine- from a noodle bar to sushi to tray passed goodies and a frozen yogurt bar (great on a hot summer day!)

View More: http://jonathantantypephotography.pass.us/korinhuggins

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

View More: http://jonathantantypephotography.pass.us/korinhuggins

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

A close up magician walked amongst the crowd, entertaining them with special tricks up his sleeve…

View More: http://jonathantantypephotography.pass.us/korinhuggins

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

The cake was one of our favorite parts of this wonderful birthday bash! Korin dreamed of this amazing Strawberry cake she is fond of from a bakery in Atlanta. And, while we couldn’t fly a cake out, we were determined to find a local bakery to do the same. We were down to the wire and there wasn’t a single bakery in town that we could find that made an actual Strawberry cake (not strawberry filled, but actual cake made from strawberries). In a bizarre twist of “meant to be” a friend mentioned that she knew a place and 24 hours later, we had our delicious, authentic STRAWBERRY CAKE! Korin was thrilled (and later said the cake was even better than the Atlanta Bakery!) Thank you, Big Sugar Bake Shop!!!

View More: http://jonathantantypephotography.pass.us/korinhuggins

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

View More: http://jonathantantypephotography.pass.us/korinhuggins

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

The guests mingled, drank, danced and signed their wishes for the birthday girl…

View More: http://jonathantantypephotography.pass.us/korinhuggins

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

And once we had a quiet moment (Is there ever such a thing in our line of work?) our “Soiree Girl” team stepped onto the blue carpet for our close up.

Soiree Girls Real Housewives

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tantype Photography

We adored working with Korin and her Dream Birthday Party idea! This party was fun, unique, heartfelt, and most of all….REAL.

 

Easter Inspiration

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Dyeing Eggs is a tradition that I always make time for no matter how crazy life is. This year, I got inspired to display them a little creatively! A little 3 tiered dessert tray + some Spanish moss + little bird nests = A great display!

Happy Spring!

THEME INSPIRATION: Fire and Ice

You asked and we’re listening! Welcome to our new series, called THEME INSPIRATION. This is the place where we’ll highlight a theme that has gotten us thinking and we’ll give some ideas to inspire your next event.

Today, we met with a client interested in a Fire and Ice theme. There are so many ideas that work with this theme, so here are a few images to get your creative juices flowing…

Fire and Ice Collage Inspiration

 

Doing your party on a smaller scale? How about these ideas:

Food: Inspired-by-Fire-BBQ.

Drinks: An icy martini bar complete with light up LED ice cubes.

Music: A playlist of songs that coordinate with your theme. Think  “Light my Fire” by The Doors and  “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice…

Lighting: A TON of candles and clear acrylic pieces to reflect light and imitate ice.

Bonus: Ask guests to dress to impress as their favorite element- Fire or Ice. It’s a great conversation starter and gets people excited about your party even before they arrive!

This theme is so hot, it’s cool!

 

Best of 2014

Happy New Year! I love the feel of a fresh new year, ripe with possibility and new opportunities. It’s also especially satisfying to look back on what has occurred in the past year. For us at Soiree, it was a great year: fun events, great clients, creative challenges and many lessons learned! I thought it would be fun to take a  look back at some of our most cherished events of 2014. This, in no way, covers them all, but I’ve chosen a few to highlight from the year with a single picture…

The Art Director’s Guild Awards. A great challenge to come up with a unique design that incorporated lighting, flowers, and was cohesive with a corporately sponsored color palette and a well thought-out stage design. The result was just what we hoped for. The event was a highlight and the feedback was incredibly satisfying!

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CBS’ “The Talk” Valentine Stage. This is what occurred when we combined 6000 roses and a french street market inspiration. We included the idea to keep the roses in a monochromatic palette and the end result was a feast for the eyes…It didn’t hurt anything to have a shout out by Julie Chen on air, either…

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Sierra Canyon’s Gala. The school took a leap of faith in raising the bar for their annual Gala Fundraiser. We joined forces to create a beautiful room- which isn’t hard with a combination of metallics, succulents, orchids and candlelight. It set the evening up for success and was enjoyed by many.

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What we fondly call “Birthday Season”. A series of our own, along with repeat Birthday party clients where we churn out some super fun, whimsical kids’ parties that are to drool over. Like…

The Retro Beach Blanket Bingo Birthday.

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The Safari themed 4th Birthday.

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And, not to be left out…The Lego Party.

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We hit our stride, with our new Decorative Rental packages available to our clients on a tight budget. We put together a rental package for this Bar Mitzvah client to suit her son’s baseball themed party. It turned out to be a homerun of a success, and didn’t break the bank!

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Dawn and Bryce’s Wedding. Two great people deserve to be surrounded by beauty…

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A French inspired Bridal Shower. This gorgeous black and pink themed shower was as gorgeous as it was heartfelt. The bride burst into tears upon arrival- overwhelmed with how beautiful everything was. Best. Reaction. EVER.

Photo by Frances Iacuzzi

Photo by Frances Iacuzzi

 

Rooftop Birthday Bash with a “Real Housewives” theme. More info coming soon in a full feature on this party, but one of the highlights was this great paper rosette piece we made. It was the perfect piece to tie together a color palette that was a complete ombre of blues…

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Melissa and John’s Wedding. These two were so wonderful to work with and we were honored to help make their vision come to life!

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Supper Club 5.0. (We designed 3.0 and 4.0 also!) What a magical night! Put together a small group of girlfriends+ a Top-Chef inspired cooking contest= a Night of fun and laughs. We got to set the mood, and Wow, was it beautiful!

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A B’nai Mitzvah Challenge. Aiden & Anakin wanted to somehow create a theme that incorporated the mystical locations in all of their favorite Blockbuster movies.  The result was a mystical, fantasy dream-come-true…

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A holiday housewarming. It was such a lovely way to close out the year, with warm decor, hot drinks and sparkling conversation!

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Happy 2015 from The Soiree Girls! What parties are you planning this year?…

Celebrate

It was a beautiful night to Celebrate, so we drew inspiration from the word “Celebrate”  and branded it (many times, literally) as our theme, which translated into a design that was warm and inviting for this important, annual school fundraiser. A palette of metallics: platinum, bronze and gold offset by the warm tones of maple blended so softly and organically.

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We styled 3 different centerpieces to create interest and add dimension to the ballroom of The Four Seasons, Westlake Village. Each tablescape worked together cohesively to make the room feel put together and celebratory.

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Freshly cut cymbidium ordchids tucked into a planted succulent arrangement, made this centerpiece a take home item that will be enjoyed for a long time!

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Each centerpiece is also branded with our event logo- giving them a unique customization that also happened to look really beautiful!

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It was a fabulous night where a lot of money was raised for a great school and we got to enjoy a beautifully decorated room in the process.

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Celebrate, indeed!

 

And the Winner is…

When it comes to Hollywood awards, some of the most creative in the business aren’t recognized at The Academy Awards, so the creative and technical fields hold their own awards to honor the genius of some of their own. We had the opportunity to produce a centerpiece design to complement the stage design of the Art Directors Guild Awards, held at the famous Beverly Hilton. From a color palette created by sponsor Kohler to drawings of the set design, we created a beautiful LED lighted centerpiece to bring the beauty of the set design right to the guests’ tables.

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We loved how the centerpieces really brought the set design out into the guest seating!

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Two different types of LED lights were used inside the vases to bring color and illumination to each centerpiece. There were three color themes, so that the space was cohesive, and yet had some beautiful differences too.

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The gorgeous set design was done by Matt Tognacci, an Emmy Award winning Art Director. It was a fantastic collaboration to bring both the stage and the room to life.

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It was an incredible evening and we were thrilled to have the centerpiece design so well appreciated. We received a Thank You email the next day, with a photo attachment of a few “random guys” sitting in front of one of our centerpieces (Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Martin Scorsese to name a few…) It was fun to see our work being enjoyed by the nominees from “Wolf of Wall Street”!

Happy Beautiful Birthday!

At Soirée, we are preparing for a really exciting launch: Collections of party decorations pre-designed and available to be delivered right to your door! We’re calling it Soirée In A Box, and it will be ready for launch this Spring, 2014. In the meantime, we had a Birthday party come up that was just calling for us to try out one of our upcoming collections- named after one of the guests of honor: The Billy Collection.

Our palette of yellow, gray, white and pink was inspired by the amazing fabric that we made into table runners. Phalaenopsis orchids seemed the perfect complement with their fuchsia centers, and the feature areas were stunning with our hanging lanterns and parasols!

We hung parasols from the ceiling for a dramatic effect…

We created a feature piece of paper rosettes to cover the large screen TV in the room…

We placed orchids in milk glass vases everywhere!

The lanterns and lighting set a breathtaking ambiance for the guests.

We used our paper lanterns in a slightly new way, by placing them on top of the table with votive candles illuminating them from the inside. Sometimes the best design effects come from taking an ordinary party prop and re-envisioning it’s use.

It was an incredible party that was both beautiful and FUN…and soon enough, will be available for purchase, so you can transform your own special event! Stay tuned!!

“Girly Chic” Supper Club

Supper Club 33

When long time friend and fabulous party hostess, Carrie approached us about doing a Supper Club for a small group of girlfriends, we were thrilled. Carrie had designed an invitation, handed it over and said, “Go!” We drew our inspiration from the color palette- Fuscia, orange, black and white and then threw in “girly” but kept it simple for our modern-minded hostess.

Guests were greeted at the door with a comfy pair of flip flops to slip into…

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The weather cooperated perfectly and simple market lights, pink gelled washes for the walls and candles created a warm and inviting ambiance.

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White couches, pillows in pink and orange and accessories in sparkling black really said “Girly”, but it wasn’t over the top…so, really “Girly Chic” (our hostess’ “theme” idea) is probably the right description.

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We created simple arrangements of roses with an assymetrical burst of cymbidium orchids to keep the look clean and unique.

This ladies Supper Club has been a yearly tradition for Carrie and some of her friends, and each year a wine tasting element is incorporated into the evening. This year, we designed simple wine charms, wine bottle numbers (so the wines could be voted on later), Wine pairing tags (for those that brought a food and wine pairing), and ballots to vote with at the end of the night.

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A beautiful evening was had by all. We were thrilled with the response from all of the guests…and heard things like, “This doesn’t even look like your backyard”, which means the transformation was a success!

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Cheers to the ladies of the 3rd annual Supper Club, and thanks to Carrie for always giving us such great inspiration to run with!!

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