A MINI GARDEN PARTY

This weekend I hosted some girlfriends for dinner and drinks. I know these girls from working as a therapist and we all happened to earn our professional licenses this year and so of course we needed to celebrate! And as you know I love any excuse to get creative, so I decided to do a little garden party theme this time given it’s summertime. Starting with the most adorable invitation from Paperless Post, I couldn’t help myself, despite inviting only three people! Aside from the one I used, all of the options from Happy Menocal are so chic. The illustrations are perfect and I honestly want to use them all. For the decor I just grabbed some pretty pink and purple flowers from Trader Joes to make an arrangement, add to the ice bucket and detail the cake with. The ice bucket was extremely easy to make but if you’re not into DIY here is one you can purchase. To make mine I just took two glasses that fit into one another and added the water and flowers in the space between them. In order to make sure the flowers didn’t all float to the top, I filled it up halfway with half the flowers and let it freeze, before doing a second round. It turned out beautiful but the ice melted within a few hours so it was pretty but not the best way to keep the wine chilled! For the punch, I poured in about two bottles of brut rosé, slices of grapefruit and grapefruit flavored Italian soda to taste. It was not only beautiful but also delicious! I love drinking brut rosé because its’ got all the benefits of champs but it’s pink and way less sweet. To garnish the punch cups I added a few peach colored raspberries I found at Trader Joes to a cocktail skewer. Another option would be to use blueberries or grapes depending on the fruit you put in the punch. I am not sure how well raspberries and grapefruit go together but the coloring on the raspberry I found was just too pretty to pass up! SusieCakes helped me out with my absolute favorite marble cake and as usual accepted my request to switch out the chocolate frosting for the pink buttercream. I added the cute flowers myself to match the other florals and give the cake some dimension. The lady who took my order didn’t seem too fazed by my request to write “Licensed AF” on it and it was as befitting a title for us as delicious. Since I left the meal up to Arthur, who made some delicious roasted veggies, a cucumber salad and chicken yakitori; I of course made a nice little cheese plate. I used my typical favorites like triple cream brie, manchego, raw honeycomb, candied nuts, water crackers and salami slices. It was delicious and so simple to put together. I also added some strawberries to keep with the garden theme! Enjoy!