Tuesday, September 15, 2015

A night in Tuscany

"A night in Tuscany" was the theme of my friend Glen's birthday party past weekend. This time last year, he was battling cancer. This year, many things have changed for the better. He is free of cancer and celebrating his 70th birthday. His wife, Cheri, decided to throw a birthday bash for her husband. 
At this event, I was in charge of flowers, the dessert buffet and  event planning along with the hostess. 
On the day of the event I assembled all the flowers in the garden to arrange. Since the theme was a night in Tuscany, the flowers had to go with the theme. I decided to include purple artichokes and some form of citrus. First I thought of including lemons in the arrangements, but on second thought lemons seemed too big for the arrangement. Luckily, I could harvest some kumquats from my tree. The hostess likes succulents so they had to be included. Proteas are not typical flowers of Tuscany, but the bright colors of gold, orange  and reds are.












See how nicely yellow billy buttons contrast with purple artichokes 



At the entrance there were handwritten instructions  for the guests.



Appetizer table. I wish I photographed face of the centerpiece on this table. I made the centerpiece using lemon branches, artichokes, rosemary, olive branches and maroon colored proteas in a Tuscan vase. Local Italian restaurant catered food for the event. 




All the guests wrote their name on the placemats, kind of self made seating arrangements


This garden is newly landscaped. The place looked absolutely gorgeous. You could see mountains far and watch the sunset. It was like we were all magically transporte to Tuscany for the night. 



Grand finale to the perfect evening the sumptuous dessert buffet: Fruit tarts, Tiramisu, Canolis, Mango mousse with berry-pomegranate sauce and Black Russian brownies. Every piece of the spread was devoured in less than half an hour.


For more memorable centerpieces, tablescapes, and recipes (including vegetarian, gluten free and vegan recipes),please check out my books, Entertaining From an Ethnic Indian Kitchen and Trader Joe's Simply Indian at my website komalinunna.com.



4 comments:

  1. Komali, how completely gorgeous! I love every single bit of it. You are so clever. Love, Mimi xxx

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  2. Amazing.Very beautiful. Keep posting such posts.
    To know about indian way of decorating home you can visit Indian home decoration.

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  3. Everything looks both delicious and lovely! What a wonderful idea for a party...life is the most special reason to celebrate.

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  4. Absolutely beautiful thank you for the inspiration!

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