Holiday Party

For the Knot event, Selden created a next-level breadstick bar. Hand-rolled breadsticks were served with flavored dips like spiced butternut squash, curried cream, and ricotta and fava bean, along with carrot and ginger and truffled wild mushroom soups. "You'd never guess it's a less expensive option because of the abundance of food on the table," the chef says.

At a party celebrating the Toms for Target partnership in Los Angeles last year, colorful nonalcoholic drinks were presented in glass decanters.

Guests could get toasty (and tipsy) at the hot chocolate bar with alcoholic mix-ins, which was set up at a private holiday party, held at 26 Bridge in December 2014 and produced by New York-based event firm Rock Paper Scissors Events.

Deutsch LA's Studio 54-theme holiday party, held at Hangar 8 in Santa Monica, California, in December 2014, featured a new classic—peppermint cake pops by Schaffer's Genuine Foods.

Designed to resemble an overgrown—but elegant—Italian garden, Bulgari's intimate dinner for the launch of its Mon Jasmin Noir scent in 2011 had sounds of chirping birds, a cocoon-like grove of greenery, and smells of lemon, jasmine, and lily of the valley. Gold candelabra wrapped in vines, lush arrangements of white and green flowers in Italian terra-cotta compotes, sprigs of jasmine, and Meyer lemons on the branch formed the centerpieces on the long communal dining table.