Anacortes Rotary Club’s fundraiser drew more than 200 people for a dinner, auction and aerialist performance in an airplane hangar.
› See Cirque du Vin Fundraiser gallery
Calliope Circus Arts of Bellingham performed a portion of their act under a 40′ x 60′ floating liner.
Check out these new party pictures by Brown Studios Photography from a recent bash in Ferndale. It’s not often that we see a birthday party (or the photography from a birthday party) of this magnitude.
A floating liner hides the cluttered ceiling of a barn and forms a dramatic backdrop for the celebration. Assorted banquet and bistro tables, swagged pipe & drape and a beverage/cigar bar fill out the space. Guests get into the spirit with period party garb.
See a complete gallery of photos from this 50th birthday party.
A floating liner is a soft, billowy, white fabric lining that is suspended from the ceiling and walls of your event space with cables. It’s great for masking an unsightly or industrial-looking ceiling or just softening the atmosphere for your event.
InTents magazine (you all read this avidly, right?) features us in this month’s magazine. The article, “Fabulous Tablescapes,” includes a photo by our friends Evantide Photography.
Check it out for talk on trends and table-design tips!
Also see these posts:
Tablescapes: Q&A Four
Tablescapes: Q&A Three
Tablescapes: Q&A Two
Tablescapes: Q&A One
Q: Where’s the balance between blah and overdone when it comes to table decor?
A: That age-old battle of form vs. function comes into play on this one. Since most people we work with seem more concerned with function than form, we take that stance as well.
Our philosophy is that you hit the mark when the table design dovetails with the rest of the event. We’re blessed with such an abundance of breathtaking rural venues in this area. Some of the best table designs we’ve seen have played a supporting role to the event’s setting, either complementing the site with linens of blue and green or contrasting with violets and cherry red.
Kayla Lynn Photography just shared photos — including the one above — with us from a recent event for which we provided red and white check tablecloths (check back for an wedding gallery next week!). It was a humble decor choice, but the result was terrific: an all-American summer feel that complemented the couple’s reception, where they served fruit in carved watermelon baskets, jars of cookies and glass bottles of root beer. It was simple and appropriate, and to us that’s a well-designed tablescape.
Stay away from precarious towers of candles and baubles. It’s a hopeless situation for people who talk with their hands, and really, no guests can have a relaxed conversation with lit tapers tottering between them.
One way we’ve found to keep tablescapes from feeling cluttered is to keep the decorations below guests’ eating and talking spaces (or, alternately, above them).
Use beautiful linens and chargers layered under the dinnerware or on the chairs. Similarly, keep floral arrangements and favors low, or at least in scale with the table, to avoid crowding guests. Short vases stuffed with monochromatic flowers like mums work well with a modern, urban style, while keeping the scale intimate.
Photo by Kayla Lynn Photography
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Q: What colors, themes and decor items are hot for 2011?
A: The trend we see in tabletop rentals is that there is no trend.
Personalization, fueled ironically by Internet access to everyone else’s event ideas, has been the theme for the past several years.
We see trendy color combos trickle in, but the impact is minor. White and black, and often the two together, hold the strong majority.
Brides punch up the neutrals with a color, but of those there’s no favorite. In the last few months we’ve had requests for linen colors ranging from eggplant and royal to goldenrod and sage.
In table rentals, however, we have seen a trend. Though classic eight-seater rounds are still popular, lately we’ve had more and more clients requesting long tables.
There’s debate over which — round tables or banquet tables — is more conducive to conversation, but lately many people have been loving the look of long tables.
We find banquet tables more flexible for decorating than rounds in some ways. We like to use fat runners laid the short way across the table, under each pair of plates, with small bunches of flowers or candles down the centerline. The scale is more intimate than with a single ornate arrangement towering over each round.
Alternately, you can place a runner down the length of a banquet table, or use square or round overlays. With banquets, you don’t run into the awkward symmetry problems round tables pose.
A recent client of ours used two long rows of tables set with white linens. Then she laid colorful runners and ribbons, crisscrossing at intervals, and deep blue napkins on the white plates. See the elegant outcome in the wedding gallery.
Photo by Suzanne Fogarty
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