What would a weekend of tennis be without an evening social at the club? Guests and tennis pros who participated in the third annual Priyanka Cup Tennis Tournament gathered at the Grand Bay Club in Key Biscayne on Saturday night for a V.I.P. reception and auction benefiting the Miami Children's Hospital.
The entrance was adorned with pink and green spandex columns as well as a white spandex arch branded with the tournament's name. While Rachel Pearson, event planner for CorporateOuting.com, had originally planned on holding the reception on the club's pool deck, inclement weather forced the party to move indoors.
There, Art of the Party covered dinner tables with ostentatious hues of pink and green spandex linens, topped with fishbowl centerpieces filled with seashells and green orchids. White folding beach chairs complemented the preppy beach-club environment. Silent-auction lots were displayed on tables underneath two arches lit from within, and a live auction also took place, with items up for bid including tickets to the 2009 Sony Ericsson Open and U.S. Open.
The dinner buffet, draped by BBJ Linen, was set up outside on the deck and accented by old fire lanterns and colorfully painted fishing crates and oil barrels, some of which also served as cocktail tables.
Bob Bonnen performed hits by the likes of Jimmy Buffett, Neil Young, and Billy Joel throughout the night.
Players and guests came for the three-day tennis tournament, which pitted local tennis enthusiasts in doubles matches with, and against, tennis professionals from Cliff Drysdale Management; they played on the courts of the Ritz-Carlton, Key Biscayne tennis garden. The tournament was the brainchild of Karim Alibhai, founder of Gencom Group, and named after his daughter.