The Engagement Party

What a week we've had. The house was finally tidied for the party once we got that giant lunch box out of the living room/dining room. I did a small bit of decorating because I won't be able to do anything in Toronto. I used to decorate halls for wedding receptions. Most people want romantic traditional but I love doing the unexpected. My kids like my take on the decorations so that is fine with me.

We don't have a very big back yard so I only decorated a small area. Later on, people would be playing bocci so I didn't want the decorations to get in the way of the game. It was just as well that I didn't do much more decorating because there was no light at all when people decided to play "extreme" bocci.

The colour scheme for the decorations came from the lanterns that I had bought late last summer. I decided to paint the columns colours to go with the lanterns.

Here is a close-up of one of the arrangements on top of the silver column. The urn was a very tasteful burgundy with a wash of creme to antique it. I bought these at Homesense in the clearance section a few years ago and have wanted to paint them. The flowers may look familiar, they are the crepe papier ones that I used originally for our oldest sons wedding party and then for the baby shower and now on to this party. I am glad that I kept them.

The pink column has a black wire basket filled with hearts, my nod to romanticism. In the background you can see part of a purple beaded crepe sari that I bought at Salvation Army for $12.99. The purple of the sari unified and heightened all of the other colours.

This is the other urn filled with yellow crepe papier roses. I like to add in natural foliage as a counter point to all of the crazy drama of the colour.

I'll be honest; this is a cheater photo. I had wanted to take picture when you could still see some colour but also see the lanterns glowing. That was the last thing on my mind. It was very dark outside when I took the pictures, but hooray for Paint Shop Pro. At least it gives you an idea of what it looked like. All of this was yesterday. It has been taken down, taken apart and is in the house ready to be put away. That is my next step. We just got in from blackberry picking. We have 4 big buckets of berries ready to wash and put into the freezer to munch on in the winter.