A Brunch or All's Well That Ends Well...

A couple of months ago my sister decided that it would be just a swell idea to throw my cousin-in-law, Candice, who also happens to be a good friend, a nice little post-bridal brunch at my home. I had never thrown a brunch before-- but with the help of my sister and a few friends, it wouldn't be all that difficult, right?


Right away I had ideas. Blue would predominate as the main color choice. Candice had used touches of blue throughout her ceremony back in February and I wanted to honor her choice and have it reflect in our design. To accentuate that choice, we'd pair chocolate brown and subtle touches of green to round out our color scheme.

I have a rather large front porch and the luxury of having no road traffic here at the house. Since moving into this home, I’ve been dying to throw a party on my porch. So it was decided that my porch would be the supreme location for this brunch.

And here’s what I’ve learned about morning parties:

1. It is much, much easier to have a party at night—it gives you more time to prepare. The night before the party I was up well into the morning tying ribbon on the favors which also served as the place cards for the seating arrangement… hot-gluing ribbon on the vases for the centerpieces… making place cards for the favors… mopping the bathroom floor and then mopping it again because I’d become a paranoid clean freak only to fall asleep on the couch and over sleeping the morning of the party and realizing that I’ve not finished spray painting the sticks blue and brown for the kitchen centerpiece and I’ve still got to mop the kitchen floor!

2. Never have a brunch the morning after a South Johnston High School Graduation. I love my rental guy. I think of him as the brother my parents really always wanted. Unfortunately my whole family—my whole extended family—loves him too. My uncle and aunt work at SJHS and help plan graduation and they decided to rent all—ALL 2,000 of his white folding chairs, which meant that we had to pick up our measly 25 chairs the morning of. Which means that at 10:25am—just a mere 5 minutes before our brunch, we were still chair-less and that brings me back to #1.

3. When inviting out of town guests, remember that they may arrive early and bring uninvited guests. The in-laws were from out of town—about an hour or so out of town—and they must have been worried that my home was going to be hard to time—because at 10:00am they were rolling up the drive and I was still in my towel. Again, that brings me to item number one.   Also they brought people that we had no idea were coming-- but it all worked out.

4. And always, always—as soon as you get them—MATCH THE DAMNED TABLECLOTHS TO THE TABLES SO YOU KNOW YOU’LL HAVE ENOUGH!!!! At 9:15am we realized that we didn’t have enough table cloths. My beloved rental guy’s people shorted us two table cloths. Luckily our chair pick up person, Cherish, was still in the area and turned around and got the linens we needed—but this put us behind even further. So yes, when the in-laws arrived, we had bare tables and no chairs.

But that is okay. The party turned out to be a raving success. We're good on our feet. Candice opened her gifts up first in the comfort of the air-conditioning and soon we were set and ready for a lovely little brunch to commence.

I had my friend, Olivia come in and take pictures. These pictures, below, are from my camera that my mother-in-law was so kind to snap for me.
So all's well, that end's well...

Enjoy!

The front door wreath... I had the bow made especially for the party.

The view from the road (it's not centered, but don't hold that against my mom-in-law, she's not a photographer-- I'll hopefully be able to post pictures from Olivia soon)

I ordered these cute little fans to serve as functional favors.  We tied ribbons on them which held the name tags (you can't see them from this angle)-- we used fruit (apples and limes) for the centerpieces and since we had a lot left over (and because there was a breeze) we used green apples as another decorative element.  I also like to pre-wrap the fork and knife in a pretty napkin and tie it with a coordinating ribbon-- it is less to carry from the buffett to the table.

Another view of the porch.

The buffett table:  We served a variety of breakfast foods and fruits.  Not pictured was our very tasty drink selections.  These ladies went through three makings of my famous champagne punch!

To the far left-- Candice opening up some presents.