We celebrated my sweet friend Colleen's birthday over the weekend and her hubs let me take the reigns on decor. The dinner was held at the new Taxman Brewery and Restaurant in Fortville and man did they do a great job. We had 20 people and zero hiccups. The food was amazing and our server was wonderful! My friend Maddie is the events guru + GM at Taxman and she really showed us a great time. They have multiple private rooms, a semi-private area with a bar and an in-house pastry chef. If you are looking for a cool place to host your event, give them a shout and tell Maddie I sent ya!
Taxman has stunning exposed brick, fun modern art and glam chandeliers. The space does not NEED help, but you know me - I have to add a little touch. To me, restaurant events don't always feel personal and for this particular one, I wanted it to feel intimate and thoughtful. I had a big event earlier in the day and did not have a ton a prep or setup time so I needed fast and easy touches that would pack a punch.
Table runners. This is such an easy way to add color and texture to your table. It really takes the whole space up a notch, but they can be pricey and time consuming to make. Well, not my way! I went to Hobby Lobby last week and snagged some sale fabric at $5 / yard. Once you know roughly how many people will be there you can guestimate how long the table will be. I bought 3 yards of fabric and cut it right down the middle - this gave me double the amount of table runners. Also, if you pick a fabric with lines that run the length of the fabric - you have your straight line built in and don't have to mess with worrying about a straight cut! All about efficiency over here. I did nothing to the edges. If I am making these for a fancy event - I will use Stitch Witchery ( if you aren't familiar - it is magical and SO easy) on the edges, but not for something casual like this. It took me 4 minutes to cut these, people.
Flowers. I talk about this a lot. You don't have to know how to design flower arrangements to make a table look pretty. Use one or multiple types of greenery and put a bulk amount of them in a cool vase. You can literally go in your backyard and clip different types of foliage. Flowers are the hard part and greenery is always a hit. If you have your heart set on flowers, use bud vases and bottles that hold single stems. You can stagger these down the table and they emulate the look of lush arrangements, but take a sliver of the time. This way people can also take home a few buds at the end of the night as well.
Photos. Photos are such an easy way to personalize a table or event. I learned this from my old boss, wedding + event guru Darcy Miller. I prefer to stick with black + white because its cohesive and feels like vintage family photos. I like to cut a white border to give them that vintage Polaroid look, too. I literally just pulled 20 different photos off of Colleen's Facebook . I made sure to pull photos that included all of the guests that were coming and several of her family. I printed these on card stock at home and purchased these photo/place card holders to display them. I staggered them down them table with candles and everyone loved them. It's also a great conversation element to get people talking if all of your guests don't know each other.
So, all in I spent:
-3 yards of Fabric ( had extra left over) $15
-20 Photo Holders (that I can reuse over and over!) $17
-Flowers $10
I already had the candles and vases and printed the photos at home.
A total of $42 and maybe an hour all in for ordering, preparing and setting up.
This was my gift to Colleen.
Not bad people!! At the end of the night I took all of the stems out and wrapped them in a napkin as a bouquet for Colleen to take home and enjoy for a bit. Everyone commented on each element and I think it was a huge success! You don't have to spend a ton of time or money to add personal touches to events like these. Just get creative!
