Mere mortals can only aspire to his level of insane organisation and polished etiquette. He does the most perfectly chic celebrations weddings, events and dinner parties and even though I will never do an event close to his level of gorgeousness he is the ultimate inspiration. I have been a big fan for years.
Though he makes all your party attempts feel really lame, for me it's still so much fun to plan a party. I have four kids so the parties I plan usually involve balloons and coloured popcorn {which I totally love} but as a nice change I did do a surprise birthday for my husband. So fun for me {not for him as he hates surprises!} He was a good sport though and luckily he loved it.
Things I've learnt from Colin.
Lighting is everything (colours, patterns, mood) and can make your event look really fancy.
You can never have too many candles put them absolutely everywhere.
Organise your bar first so as soon as people arrive they can help themselves to a drink.
Choose a colour theme and carry it through.
You don't have to have lots of money to decorate and entertain.
The first thing I really wanted to do was some coloured lighting. I hired a roulette table and it was purple so from the beginning I really wanted to have that as colour theme and I knew from all of Colins photos that purple is a great party colour! After a bit of research I decided that I could change my outdoor lights with some professional lighting gel.
It looks exactly like cellophane but it's resistant to heat and unlike cellophane the colour saturation is strong when you put it against a light. I payed $15 for a huge roll from here. I cut it into small circles and used sticky dots to put it inside some of my light fixtures. It made a HUGE difference. I also put candles everywhere and I was really happy with how pretty it all looked. {Looks more like red in the photos}
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| {This is the part where I confess to living in a stunning home} |
Next I used a bunch of material that I bought for only $4 a meter to make a table cloth and cover my outdoor cushions. My mum is a sewer, I am not. But I know enough to overlock a cushion cover in an envelope style so that you don't need buttons or zips. I was very generous with my pattern size just incase I made a mistake and they still worked out to only $2 each. I also covered some boxes (free from Bunnings) in material to lay some of my food platters on. Just stapled it on. And in homage to Colin I really wanted feathers. I literally found the ONLY place on the Gold Coast that rents them and guess how many feather centrepieces they have. One. And it looked great.
Another confession, I have the worlds best pantry {it's a blog post waiting to happen} and thats my dad in it about to decorate the pavlovas. Above that is the 'bar' my kitchen windows open all the way up and I put fairy lights along the tracks so people could serve themselves from the outside. Although at this stage it was still raining! I wanted to have all my husbands favourite food which was a little tricky as he isn't exactly a foodie. I found a really good catering company Savoir Fare and the chef did all the food on my BBQ. Chicken quesadillas, chilli con carne boats, chicken sausages, lamb cutlets and lamb skewers. Yes it is all meat! So I did caesar salads as well. For dessert I did mini lemon cupcakes, pavlovas, birthday cake and all his favourite lollies.
Mini cupcakes and cookies for a glorified boys night? Absolutely. Final confessions, I absolutely love planning a party ... more than I love going to it! Colin, what a fun job you have.
