A Holiday Table

If you ever get the chance to attend an event at a local store or business: take it!  I had a really amazing time at an event hosted last week at our Anthropologie. I think their home goods are pretty adorable anyway, but the opportunity to put a cohesive holiday table together and to learn a bit about floral arranging was more than enough to get my RSVP.

Hors d'oeuvres at Anthropologie, I love that they tucked treats into the drawers!

The event was hosted and catered by Anthropologie, with Teresa Wilson of Camelback Flowershop presenting. She started by going over three general tablescapes:

Ladies' Tea

This tea is set with a variety of china and linens, imitating the blend of patterns that someone may have collected over the years. Teresa suggested using flowers in a similar color--yellow and green in this case--to anchor the variety of colors in your collections and make things look cohesive.

Bohemian Thanksgiving.

This table was all about texture.  Teresa mentioned using large soft flower clusters to counter-balance the roughness of the "bark" on the candles. She used bright pops of color with rich dark tones so the flowers can stand up to the color presented in the table setting. Woven placemats with linen napkins farther the idea of a variety of textures.  While I love the idea, I think I might have chosen to play with texture and keep the colors a bit more cohesive. You'd lose that carefree Bohemian vibe, but I think the organizer in me is just itching to to bring it together though some unifying pieces or colors.

Frosted Holiday

This was hands-down my favorite of the tablescapes... an elegant frosted gray. For this, the floral arrangements were kept very simple: garden roses in a teacup and lambs tongue in another. The idea here was to have the florals look like items you'd brought in from your garden--which is a big trend right now. To keep things natural and not over-worked.  The pieces on the table itself were mostly gray and white with some "milk glass" candles that are pretty clever.

Overall I just loved the message of primarily using pieces you have on hand to make an elegant table setting for the holidays.  You can always add a few new accents to give a little pop without breaking the bank.

The demo table: Ladies' Tea in front with Bohemian Thanksgiving behind.

Teresa did a great job of providing tips for choosing florals, structuring and arranging them, and keeping them healthy longer. It was amazing information and I definitely want to share that as a series of DIY's to help us through the holidays.

Have you ever visited an event like this?  What was it like?