A City Garden Party

Last week Bryan and I turned another year older. We celebrated this past Saturday with a dinner party in our garden. I love reading about Jordan Ferney's pop up dinner parties in San Francisco, so we decided to give one a go here in Boston. After days of rain, the clouds parted, and it was such a perfect evening with friends!

I found the mix matched china and flatware at local thrift stores. The napkins were a Target sale rack score. We basically wanted to leave everything in the garden overnight and not worry about it (who wants to clean right after a dinner party anyway!?) and that's what we did. I came across this burlap table cloth on etsy last week and decided to give it a try. It really was not that difficult of a project and I could seriously stare at it for hours. It was SO pretty.  I rented the table and chairs and had them delivered that morning. We could only fit one 6' table so we really packed in. Sadly, we were kind of scurrying at the end to get things set up, so I do not have any daylight detail shots.

The setting was perfect. There is a street lamp near our plot which helped illuminate the space but not so much that it took away from the candles. 

We had wine and beer and were a little worried about a police officer coming by and telling us that it was not allowed, but it didn't happen. Everyone who did walk by seemed totally enchanted by our little party.

Our menu was pretty basic. We had anti-pasto skewers as an appetizer. For dinner we went family style with crock pot bolognese (my crock pot has an insulated carrying case which was great for transport), arugula salad, and store bought garlic bread. We made a chocolate cake with creme cheese icing for dessert and shared in blowing out the candles.

All in all it was a huge success (one of Bryan's buddies called it epic:) I am ready to throw another one. And I've already decided, next time we're taking it up a notch and heading to one of docks on the Charles!