Gilt City Launches in Washington With Preppy Georgetown Garden Party

Gilt City, the event-focused arm of parent company Gilt Group, celebrated launching in its ninth city Wednesday night with a garden party in Georgetown. The company, which offers discounts on sought-after local experiences, is hosting a series of seven events for its new members in D.C. This party served as its official launch for 225 of Washington's press and tastemakers.

“We’re all about bringing you amazing experiences,” said Gilt PR and event manager Cara Crowley, who has also coordinated similar kickoff parties in New York, Boston, and Miami. “For example, we’re having our launch event at this beautiful location and bringing out D.C.’s best to get to know them and focus on showing you what we can do.”

The two-hour garden party took pace in the multilevel backyard and pool area of Halcyon House in Georgetown. Crowley reached out to Annie Perezchica at Gilt's local PR company, BrandLinkDC, for help finding the venue and coordinating the night, which included games like horseshoes, boccie ball, and croquet to keep guests interacting with the brand.

Keeping with the pretty theme, DC Rental provided all rattan lounge furniture with white cushions and pink and green accent pillows. The pink and green palette extended to the napkins, wineglasses, and the graphic prints on the serving trays carried by waiters in all white, who wore brightly colored bow ties of various prints.

Design Cuisine kept the food light, with small bites of crab and avocado on toasted bread triangles, bite-size crab cakes, cubes of buffalo chicken served on a celery stick, and the like. Waiters also passed summery cocktails like mint julep snow cones and ginger mojitos.

Organizers tapped into the local culture when compiling the gift bags, including items like a branded Washington Nationals baseball, a cupcake with Gilt City fondant topper from popular Georgetown Cupcake, and a cookie cutter shaped like the Capitol.