A Dinner Party in the Drive

Several years ago, I dreamed up the idea to have a dinner party in our driveway and over the weekend we finally made it happen.  And it was just as fun and wonderful as I envisioned it.  We are very blessed with wonderful friends who make having a party loads of fun!

I always knew that I wanted one long table where we could eat family style, and I was thrilled to learn that farm tables are available for rent!  Having the farm tables (the legs actually fold up for transport and storage) made it possible to have a runner instead of fussier table linens, which was the look I was hoping to have. Also, instead of water glasses we used mason jars.

I wanted the informality of having a mixture of chairs so we used our own Tolix chairs, a friends painted wooden chairs and four rentals mixed in.  Bryce strung lights from the garage to tall bamboo poles that he rigged to hold them.  As soft light tends to do, they made everything (and everyone!) look beautiful!

The morning of the party, I went to the farm and picked lots of wildflowers.  I used bottles that I've collected at rummage sales and antique stores to hold little bunches of the wildflowers.  These were staggered down the table along with votive candles.

We made the decision early on to have the meal catered so that we didn't go crazy trying to make enough food for everyone and I'm so glad that we did.  We served southern comfort food and it was delicious!  Our menu included fried chicken, pulled pork, jalapeno corn bread, herbed macaroni and cheese, biscuits, salad with pecans and peaches, coleslaw and balsamic drizzled tomatoes.

I wanted to keep things simple for the drinks so we had one "signature" drink and then beer, wine and champagne.  Of course, you can't have southern food without sweet tea so we had a cocktail that was made with Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka and Lemonade.  They were served in small jelly jars.

I felt like I wanted to contribute something to the menu so I made the desserts.  We had cherry pie,  bourbon pecan pie and a peach upside down cake.  A funny note about this picture; I took it earlier in the day when I was figuring out placement for everything.  When it was actually time to serve dessert they were not presented in such a sweet way.  The reality was that they were sort of just thrown on the table and offered up to anyone who wanted some!  Oh well, the best laid plans...

I used this opportunity to wear a vintage skirt that I found last winter!

It turned out to be a chilly evening so we had a fire on the porch plus several fires in fire pits (we borrowed one from a friend!).  It was the perfect way to end summer and kick off fall!