After last weekend’s marathon project weekend we spent this past week finishing things up; sanding and staining in between bouts of rain, in order to get our harvest table and the benches ready for our annual BBQ this past weekend. We finished on friday evening just in time to let things dry and settle for saturday. We also had an episode involving the lawn and several mowers. I think it’s official, I will never cut it on a landscaping team.
For a while now we’ve held two annual parties for all our friends and extended army family; a large christmas party and a summer bbq. We gather everyone for a semi-potluck event and party for about 8 hours straight. When the summer bbq is all said and done, there is usually chocolate smeared somewhere and a toddler passed-out under a chair. It’s a blast and exhausting, and I usually spend days prepping and then days recovering. This weekend was no exception! I’m still in dire need of a foot rub.
We had our flock of flamingos and a nice sign pointing towards the party, to prevent stragglers at the door.
Although the harvest table and benches were the centrepiece of the summer bbq this year – I mean who doesn’t want to show off? – I chose to go with a pink and gold theme for everything else. Why pink and gold? Because I already own a couple of pink and gold decor items from previous events, and I have a handsome war chest of paper plates and napkins from the Target clearance.
gif from giphy.com
Doesn’t it look like she’s mouthing the words “pink and gold” while cranking dat soulja boy?
Not only that, but I came into possession of an etsy gift card and was burning to use it on some fun gold mylar letter balloons. I got the word “Fiesta,” and was stoked to hang it up and proclaim the intent of our day to all! Sadly the wind had other plans. If you are throwing a father’s day party or brunch, or just want to show your love for dad with Gold letter balloons consider Studio Pep as they sell pre-packaged words and ship very quickly. If you’re also just looking for fun father’s day gifts, check out etsy’s father’s day section.
I, for one, will be acquiring a couple more letter garlands for future events. Can you say “OMG CAKE”?! That speaks for itself, a cake party!
Back to the decor. I also acquired some really nice paper fans from Flying Figs Vintage, also on Etsy (CA). I had a couple of pink paper fans left from our Galentine’s day tea party, and thought they would go together perfectly. They did, but the wind had other ideas. I’ll definitely be saving them for some other event, preferably with no wind.
I was able to pin our pink and gold tassel garland to the table, and let it serve as a distraction to all the toddlers who wanted to play with it. This was also a leftover from Galentines, but one I will cherish for a while, because tassel garlands are the IT item of the summer apparently, and they cost a small fortune.
What we did end up doing for the decor, was using our balloon string lights, our DIY marquee lights sign, and the beautiful greenery around us speak for itself. With all the green backyard space we have this year, it’s quite the difference from last year’s BBQ when we were all jammed into our row house lot. Never again.
Hmmm desert.
At the peek of the evening we had about 50 people, dwindling down to about half a dozen for a late night game of cards against humanity around the fire. We wrapped-up the evening around 12 midnight, and rallied the troops for a breakfast on sunday morning at our favourite breakfast place.
It was a successful BBQ that’s for sure, and we look forward to our next event, but mostly just having smaller dinner parties and board game nights outside under the stars and the lights.
