You all know that sometimes I work on events, because decorating for a party is just as much fun as decorating a house (you can imagine how crazy I went over my wedding; thank goodness it was before Pinterest!).
Last weekend was our school’s first annual Valentine’s Day “Bowtie Ball.” This fundraiser was intended to be both a lovely date night event for Valentine’s Day and a fundraiser for a new campus building. If you follow us regularly, then you know that I’ve been working on this since October–seriously–along with an incredibly talented team, and I’ve been promising photos. Today’s the day!
We were pretty excited because not only did we sell out, but we OVERSOLD. That means that we had to seat guests on each others’ laps to fit them all–just kidding, but it was cozy! It was so much fun that I’m already working on ideas to make it even better next year!
I’m just going to show you photos tonight and I’ll be back with a few additional posts on how we DIY’ed all of the decor items (thank you, Rust-Oleum for all of the Metallic Gold spray paint–it’s my absolute favorite and we used a TON!!). And if you’re a Silhouette owner, then you’ll be amazed at all of the things I used it for–place cards, auction paddles, die cuts, and so much more.
I’m also going to link to all of the local sources we used for this event; if you’re planning an event in Pinehurst/Southern Pines it will come in handy.
This theme would work for a wedding as well as any type of formal event. The black and white stripes are a great background for gold and pops of pink, red, and peach–very “Kate Spade” and classic.
Our venue was the historic Fair Barn in Pinehurst, North Carolina. It was built in 1917 and I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s absolutely gorgeous.
This is the “before” photo when we started decorating. Don’t you adore the chiavari chairs and those rafters? The huge swags of grapevine are always there (they’re not lighted in this picture) and are beautiful. I use lighted grapevine all the time in my decor–it’s so pretty.
And THIS is what my dining room looked like before we took three carloads of stuff over to decorate…there was more in the garage!
I’ve worked with a lot of great event coordinators, but Danaka at the Fair Barn is probably my favorite ever. She is so good at her job, and really bent over backwards to accommodate us.
Since there wasn’t an event the night before ours, she was kind enough to let us in a day early to decorate, and we needed every minute since the plan was a bit ambitious. Go big or go home, right?
I had to have roses for our centerpieces, but forgot how they jack up the prices right around Valentine’s Day. Grrr! Grazie mille to local King & Hollyfield Design for giving us a wonderful deal on thirty dozen beautiful roses!
We set up a bubbly bar with champagne mix-ins on one side of the stage, and a candy bar on the other. Here’s the bubbly bar:
As an aside, if you’re planning a black and white event, I can’t say enough about the striped fabric we used. It’s from OnlineFabricStore.net, It was so inexpensive (less than $4 a yard!!), but beautiful. At 60″ wide, I was able to use it for everything, and it draped beautifully. The exact one I used is {here}. It even washed beautifully when we spilled some cranberry juice on it, and I just rolled it back onto the roll for next year.
I used these jars for the candy bar and assumed 1/2 pound of candy per guest (we had leftovers). I tried to use retro candy like Pop Rocks, Fun Dips, Ring Pops, Sugar Daddies, and more since that’s what we grown ups like!
We had {these} sweet black and white striped paper bags for the candy and added a gold bowtie that said, “So sweet of you to come.” Guests took them home as favors at the end of the night and we treated our student volunteers, as well.
We also had a professional photo booth set up; the guests loved that and it was a fun souvenir to take home. I still can’t take a normal picture though, can I?
We added a few bowtie and Valentine’s Day themed props for fun.
Dinner was delicious; Elliott’s on Linden is one of our yummiest local restaurants and their catering is on point. The menu was so good that we framed it:
My husband and I both had the steak but I heard rave reviews about the salmon, too.
Besides the candy bar, we had dessert platters brought to each table, with cake squares from our wonderful local grocery store, Lowe’s Foods, chocolate dipped strawberries, truffles, and chocolates. Yum!
A team of very talented parents and friends put together the chocolate dipped strawberries at a tremendous cost savings. Aren’t they gorgeous? They were delicious!
We had a limited bar with wine, beer (from local AND veteran-owned Southern Pines Brewing Company), and Bowtie Bourbon. The bourbon recipe is from Amy’s husband and the recipe is here. I think next year we’ll consider adding a second vodka-based signature drink, but we also had the champagne bar and wine on the tables and didn’t want to overdo the alcohol.
Aren’t the bowtie swizzle sticks cute? We made two hundred and fifty of those; I found the idea on Pinterest (surprise!).
It took me awhile to figure out how to make them because they’re so teeny, but it was worth the perseverance because they are so darned cute!
The bowtie folded napkins on the tables were a fun touch (and it’s a super-easy fold, too).
We had bowties on our registration tables, too–the diecuts on top of the gold frames and our bust of Diana, whom you may recognize from my living room. It is a classical school, after all, so she fit our theme.
We advertised on the invitation that it was “Black tie optional. Bowtie required” so almost all of the men were wearing bowties and they all looked so handsome! The crazy gold beads I’m wearing below are for one of the raffle games; I look like I just came from Mardi Gras, don’t I?
We had a hugely talented event team, each of whom brought so much to the project. Here are a few of them:
My kids were both there as volunteers, along with quite a few of our older students, and they were wonderful ambassadors for their school. Not to mention the fact that they were able to show off their ballroom dancing skills since they’ve been taking classes for cotillion. Their tango was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself!
For all of those who volunteered, attended, donated, sponsored, and prayed for the success of this event, THANK YOU. It was a fabulous evening and we exceeded all of our goals! And if you’re local to the Pinehurst/Southern Pines area, then we’d love to have you join us next year. Mark your calendars!
{See an event I coordinated for our former school in Savannah here}
Thanks for stopping by~
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Event Details:
Venue: The Fair Barn in Pinehurst, North Carolina
Catering: Elliot’s on Linden
Music: The Carolina Philharmonic
Auctioneer: Colonel Ben Farrell, Custom Benefit Auctions
Sound, lighting, photo booth: Ward Productions
Cake squares: Lowe’s Foods
Flowers: King & Holyfield Design
Event Photography: Darren McMahel
