Dinner in the Garden

Friday night I hosted my first ever dinner party for both Nate and my family.

It was a garden themed party and I dubbed it:

Presh right?!

Every time I volunteer to host a shindig Nate always second guesses his decision to marry me... someone who likes to entertain. That's why whenever something new comes up I have to strategically bring it up when he's in a good mood. 

This time he was like, "that's fine, but it's your party...you get to do all the work."

...Poor guy got suckered into putting patio lights on the patio ceiling, setting up my tables, cleaning up the backyard and cooking the chicken. 

He might just be a good sport after all. ...

I saw the idea for a garden party in my Better Homes and Gardens magazine and thought to myself that I could TOTALLY do that!

So off to Pinterest (and Home Depot) I went!

I was gonna have everyone come dressed up as their favorite flower, but was afraid that's where Nate (or every other male in attendance, for that matter) might draw the line...So I went with nay on the human flower idea.  

The table

My centerpieces

Mason jars to drink out of and floating tea lights in water for decoration

The drink/food table

I couldn't wait for the sun to go down so I could turn on our new patio lights! I've wanted to put lights on the ceiling like that for a long time, so this garden party was the perfect excuse to get Nate to help me!

They created the perfect ambience for our dinner in the garden

 For dinner we had chicken (courtesy of yours truly, the husband), pasta salad (yes, I actually contributed to making the food), a green salad (a la my mother-in-law, Sherri), and a strawberry jello salad (from the Kitchen of none other than my mom Sally).

And everything was DEEEEE-LISH!

I was so pumped to bring out dessert because I found the cutest idea online for a garden themed dessert!

Taa-dahhh!

 It's pound cake on the bottom, then filled in with ice cream (and a couple gummy worms for a real "garden" effect), topped with crunched up Oreos for the "potting soil", complete with a flower!

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being "ohmuhgosh seriously, SO cute right?!" I'd give it a 12.

Cause seriously... SO cute right?!

I'm thinking next year I'll have everyone come smelling like their favorite flower, and then we'll blind fold people and go around and sniff each other and see if we can't guess what flower we are. ...any takers??