Preparing Lily Pond for a Special Surprise Party
As you all know, I love to entertain, but it’s even more exciting when I host surprise parties for dear friends.
Last weekend, I hosted a very special party at Lily Pond, my home in East Hampton, New York. My friends, Ben and Bonnie, celebrated a milestone birthday, and their grandson, Will, asked if we could hold the party at my home. I was thrilled with the idea, so we prepared a wonderful gathering for their family and friends. I wanted the decorations to be very special, so we set up a long dining table adorned with pretty shells and candles, illuminated the entire area with hundreds of tiny string lights, and brought lots of glorious, fragrant flowers from my Bedford farm.
Enjoy these photos of our preparations, and be sure to check back again tomorrow for my blog about the party - it was so much fun!
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- There’s a lot to prepare for the big surprise birthday party. Here I am by one of our beverage stations.
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- Lilies are in full bloom here now, so I decided to have lily arrangements all around – all these beautiful flowers are from my cutting garden in Bedford. We transported them in these buckets and bins.
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- Kevin Sharkey made wonderful arrangements for inside and outside the house.
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- These lilies are so beautiful on the coffee table. Remember, pollen is an important part of a lily’s anatomy, but it is notorious for staining flesh and fabric. When using them as cut flowers, gently pull the anthers off as soon as the flowers open.
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- I love the pink tones of these lilies – they look so pretty in front of this window.
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- For this party, I wanted everyone to sit at one long table, so we put six eight-foot long tables together surrounded by 55 wicker chairs. I always have many, many chairs for entertaining.
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- All our table candles are from Luminara – great pillar candles that glow for 500-hours on two-batteries. These were custom made for my party, but they come in various colors and sizes for both indoor and outdoor use. http://luminara.com/
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- I have a large collection of shells, so I wanted to use them as centerpieces on the table. These conch shells look so pretty on the light pink tablecloth.
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- At first, we carefully spaced large conch shells and smaller shells along the length of the table, but realized this display took up too much room.
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- Then Kevin did a little rearranging, bunched the shells together, and made them all look so much better.
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- Each table setting included a pretty pink goblet from Borrowed BLU, a luxury tabletop rental company. https://www.borrowedblu.com/
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- Here is my place setting from above – Kevin makes such beautiful place cards. And, for every dinner party, I always include a menu.
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- Everything is coming together so wonderfully.
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- This table is on my very large, 65-foot long front porch, which looks out onto the expansive front circular lawn – it is the perfect setting for a party.
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- I also wanted to illuminate the entire lawn, so we made 10-foot poles painted to match the house trim, and then staked them into the ground several feet apart. Each one had a C-hook at the top to secure our lights.
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- In all, we used 350-feet of string lights with globe bulbs. My lawn has a circumference of 220-feet, so that’s a lot of lights! You will love how it looks at night!
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- Around the pool, our summer intern, Samantha Frisoli, placed votive candles – both for safety and for decoration.
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- Every summer, I send a collection of tropical plants from my Bedford farm to my home in East Hampton and to Skylands, my home in Maine. These alocasias look great around the pool.
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- The gardens are also so lush and vibrant this season – they make me so happy.
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- In the cottage kitchen, Chef Aron Cutuc from PS Tailored Events, began preparing the food – these are tomahawk steaks from my friend, Pat LaFrieda. http://www.lafrieda.com/
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- Here, Aron is preparing crudite platters – delicious, fresh vegetables – many from my Bedford, New York farm.
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- All the colors looks so wonderful together.
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- These are the cakes for our dessert – fresh from the oven.
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- And here are the homemade biscuits.
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- Here is the day’s team from PS Tailored Events.
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- Carlos and Fernando took the dogs for a nice walk before the festivities began.
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- Before any party, big or small, always try to prepare the platters and other dishes ahead of time.
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- We also prepared these glasses for the special themed drink, which I will share with you tomorrow in the “party” blog.
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- Our wait staff is prepared and ready for our guests to arrive.
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- Everything is all set – right on time. Here I am at the back of this long table. I can’t wait for the party to start. Be sure to check in again tomorrow to see how it goes!
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