We had so much fun hosting my mom’s birthday dinner that we wanted to do the same for Ryan’s parents’ birthdays, which are within a week of each other. We changed things up a little bit this time- Ryan chose the menu and handled most of the cooking responsibilities while I took care of decorations and prepared some of the side dishes.
I also made these paper flowers to hang from the ceiling. If you can believe it, I used leftover tissue paper from all of our shower gifts here! I found the designs and directions at marthastewart.com. Ryan strung the lights around the window to further adorn the drink station in our eat-in-kitchen nook.
Left: The glass jars Ry and I found in someone’s garbage, so we decided to rescue and reuse them. Another thing we reused were three table runners from our reception; the brown was perfect for the fall color theme. Right: We also laid different glasses/mugs out and let people serve themselves to wine, water or hot (spiked) apple cider.
place settings for the celebrants
Just like for my mom’s birthday dinner, I wanted to make something special for each parent’s table setting. This time, instead of a homemade card, I reused metal cans as candy holders. I used decorative paper and ribbon on the outside, and tissue paper, candy and extra reeds on the inside. These treats welcomed them to their seats and they took them home with them at the end of the evening.
full of their favorite candies
