Guests can usually count on the Central Park Conservancy’s annual Halloween ball to dazzle—with spirited partygoers in imaginative costumes and spooky, sparkly decor. This year the conservancy’s events team of Terri Coppersmith, Laura Hall, and Jill Pall worked with Matthew David Events for the second year in a row to pull the ghoulish look together for 650 guests.Designer Matthew David Hopkins reflected the theme for this year’s fete—“Into the Darkness”—in the decor, by wrapping tent poles with bittersweet and grapevines, and bathing the tent in deep magenta and orange light. Caterer Laurence Craig accented hors d’oeuvre trays with prickly plants.
In the dining tent, Hopkins draped the tables in deep purple crushed velvet linens from Cloth Connection. Centerpieces featured black painted models of castles and dragons alongside purple votive candles, red roses, purple dendrobium orchids—and an array of Halloween-appropriate foliage like spiral-shaped fiddlehead ferns and spiky, spherical pods.
Laurence Craig’s dinner menu included Chianti braised short ribs, wild mushroom compote, and potato and artichoke gratin, with warm pumpkin caramel bread pudding for dessert.
Crystal chandeliers and plastic skeletons entangled in synthetic spiderwebs menaced the crowd from above the dance floor, where guests danced to tunes played by Starlight Orchestras’ band. Guest judges Sigourney Weaver and Alec Baldwin presided over the costume contest as guests strutted in their Halloween finery. (Our favorite: A blonde dressed as Tippi Hedren from The Birds, clad in a red suit and covered in crows with outstretched wings.)
—Alesandra Dubin
Photos: Jamie Watts Photography (tent, tables, spider webs)
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In the dining tent, Hopkins draped the tables in deep purple crushed velvet linens from Cloth Connection. Centerpieces featured black painted models of castles and dragons alongside purple votive candles, red roses, purple dendrobium orchids—and an array of Halloween-appropriate foliage like spiral-shaped fiddlehead ferns and spiky, spherical pods.
Laurence Craig’s dinner menu included Chianti braised short ribs, wild mushroom compote, and potato and artichoke gratin, with warm pumpkin caramel bread pudding for dessert.
Crystal chandeliers and plastic skeletons entangled in synthetic spiderwebs menaced the crowd from above the dance floor, where guests danced to tunes played by Starlight Orchestras’ band. Guest judges Sigourney Weaver and Alec Baldwin presided over the costume contest as guests strutted in their Halloween finery. (Our favorite: A blonde dressed as Tippi Hedren from The Birds, clad in a red suit and covered in crows with outstretched wings.)
—Alesandra Dubin
Photos: Jamie Watts Photography (tent, tables, spider webs)
Related Stories
Central Park Has Far-Out Fete
Central Park’s Ghostly Halloween Benefit
Top 10 Designers: Matthew David Hopkins
Crystal chandeliers and plastic skeletons entangled in synthetic spiderwebs hung above the dance floor at the Central Park Conservancy’s annual Halloween ball.
Matthew David Events draped tables in deep purple crushed velvet linens from Cloth Connection.
For the cocktail hour that preceded dinner, bittersweet and grapevines wrapped tent poles, and deep magenta and orangey light bathed the space.
Laurence Craig accented hors d’oeuvre trays with prickly plants.
