At a 40th birthday party, Susan Holland Events filled the Stephan Weiss Studio in New York with disco ball lights and projected French surrealist films, while a swing hung near the dance floor.
Photo: Jamie Watts
Todd Events made a wedding held inside a large barn in Aspen seem more intimate with two tall signature bars and scattered seating and food station vignettes. Hanging glass globes appeared to lower the ceilings.
Photo: Karlisch Wrubel Photography
Inspired by the family’s love of candy, David Monn used ring pops, gummy frogs, lollipops, and sour apple gummy rings to create the centerpieces at a recent bat mitzvah.
Photo: Brian Dorsey Studios
Ritzy Bee Events used craft paper and chalk to label the passed appetizers for a rehearsal dinner at the Decatur House in Washington so guests wouldn’t be left guessing.
Photo: Kate Headley Photography
For a donut-themed bridal shower put together by blogger Elsie Larson, a giant chalkboard filled with descriptive doodles served as the backdrop of the food spread.
Photo: Elsie Larson/elsiecake.com
For an upscale dinner party, Fête presented a clambake menu in a formal, modern setting by having waiters serve custom Plexiglas trays filled with seafood.
Photo: Huy Nguyen/Love Unscripted
At a casual outdoor wedding in California planned by Kate Miller Events, gingham flags displaying table numbers were tucked into vintage soda bottles filled with flowers.
Photo: True Love Photo
Guests created custom perfumes at a scent bar set up by Ka-Mil-Yin, a Los Angeles-based fragrance company that specializes in perfume parties, to take home as a favor from a bridal shower.
Photo: Elizabeth Messina
For a dandy-themed graduation party in Hollywood, Canvas & Canopy designed a dessert buffet that eschewed the twee look in favor of a sophisticated display of treats on cake stands made from vintage candlesticks and shelves built using industrial pipes.
Photo: Jonathan Moore
For a New York couple marrying at the Waldorf Astoria Orlando, Heather Snively of Weddings Unique recreated the newlyweds’ hometown with a hand-painted backdrop of Central Park from Greenery Productions. Lighting and real trees helped the scene come to life.
Photo: Shiprapanosian.com
Marcy Blum Associates built a bakery-style display case to offer guests breakfast-to-go treats from New York bakeries at the end of a wedding reception.
Photo: Eliot Holzman Photograph
Jes Gordon/Proper Fun created a supper club atmosphere at Gotham Hall in New York for a recent bar mitzvah. Four-hundred luminaries filled with LED candles were hung from a large oval truss on the ceiling.
Photo: Andre Maier Photography
Matthew Parker Events crafted lighting fixtures for a speakeasy-themed wedding using hats from a party supply store, decorative ribbon, corded wire, and filament bulbs.
Photo: Yvonne Wong
For a wedding at the King Plow Event Gallery in Atlanta, Bold American Events & Catering designed an upside-down centerpiece of yellow tulips and glass globes that hung above the head table.
Photo: Our Labor of Love
David Beahm Design put together a farm cart filled with Israeli market-inspired treats, like jars of honey, nuts, and dried apricots, which was displayed at the wedding of a couple looking to tie in their Israeli roots. Guests filled small burlap bags to take home.
Photo: Courtesy of David Beahm Design
At a wedding designed by Triton Productions, the focal point of the pre- and post-ceremony cocktail area at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach was a custom-designed 360-degree bar made of corrugated mirror.
Photo: Donnanewman.com
Bryn Chernoff of Paperfinger created custom calligraphy stamps of each guest’s name, which doubled as place cards and favors at a private dinner party held at the Foundry in New York.
Photo: Jen Huang Photography
The tables at a graffiti-themed bar mitzvah designed by David Stark Design and Production, held at Center 548 in New York, displayed arrangements of daffodils and ranunculuses sprouting from cinder block planters.
Photo: Susan Montagna
Bathroom amenity baskets are a staple at social events, sometimes tying to the event’s motif, like this one created by State of the Art Enterprises for a bar mitzvah with a graphic pattern theme.
Photo: Carlos Andres Varela
Jeffrey Foster of Event Creative designed custom-built tables and props, including glowing baseball diamond-shaped tables and a scoreboard that hung above the dance floor, for a bar mitzvah at the Ravenswood Event Center in Chicago.
Photo: Lee Ross Photography
For a vodka shot bar at a birthday party designed by Kristi Amoroso Special Events, the bottles were displayed in a sculptural arrangement of textured ice spheres.
Photo: Nick Brown Photography
Mélangerie Inc.’s customized wedding genealogy charts detail the relationship of the wedded couple to their guests with the help of a relationship key. Guests browse the chart during the cocktail hour to learn about their tablemates.
Photo: Courtesy of Mélangerie Inc.
For a wedding at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Marc Hall Design built seven-foot-tall mirrored glass vessels to hold apple tree branches adorned with phalaenopsis orchids that were kept hydrated through a system of hand-blown glass pipes.
Photo: Gruber Photographers
For a bat mitzvah at Guastavino’s in New York, Susan Holland Events used Tyvek pillows hand-stitched with neon thread as chargers. After the meal, waiters threw the pillows in the center of the tables, where they glowed under black light.
Photo: Johannes Kroemer
Levy Lighting and Preston Bailey collaborated on a wedding after-party lounge held in a tent, with the ceiling lit from behind to create the glowing effect.
Photo: Courtesy of Levy Lighting
Relief From High-Heel Suffering
After a long Oscar night, host Seth MacFarlane's official after-party included a station from Tkees, which encouraged guests to check their heels (similar to the way they would at a coat check) and pick up a pair of flip-flops—in gold, appropriate to the occasion.
Photo: Alesandra Dubin/BizBash
Flip-Flop Takeaways
MSNBC also had a flip-flop station at its White House Correspondents' Association Dinner after-party, providing relief for folks who had been on their feet all evening.
Photo: Beth Kormanik/BizBash
Brown paper crinkled into a chicken-wire frame created a hive-like cave for the bartender, who served drinks using honey from Savannah Bee.
Photo: Jim Anness
At the 125th anniversary gala for the National Geographic Society in June, the “Land, Sea, and Sky” theme inspired an array of custom tables and toppers, including glacier ice sculptures. Select Lucite tables were not topped with any decorations, but instead held water and plant life, or natural objects like seashells.
Photo: Robert Isacson
Held in April, the Catalina Island Conservancy Ball’s campfire theme was reflected in the decor, which included centerpieces of illuminated apothecary jars filled with the makings of a classic campsite snack: s’mores.
Photo: Shana Cassidy Photography
Russell Simmons’s Art for Life benefit, held in the Hamptons in July, featured an idyllic theme—“Field of Dreams”—that came to life in the whimsical centerpieces. Floating kites suspended over each table and anchored to wheatgrass flats had colorful signs on their tails that held the names of artistic vocations such as “dancer” and “poet.”
Photo: Johnny Nunez
