Thank you for those who watched us live! Here is the recording of our event last night. (We jump on right after their winemaker at about 23 minutes in…)

We enjoyed showcasing our Thanksgiving table design and as promised, we have included all the products we displayed! A quick recap for those who could not attend: we just finished sharing our favorite way to decorate the Thanksgiving table LIVE in partnership with St. Supéry Winery for their virtual tasting series. The tasting kicked off with a history of the St. Supéry Napa Valley Estate Rosé then DG Events designing the Thanksgiving table segment and ending with dining tips from Chef Tod Kawachi. Don’t worry if you missed it, we have plenty of photos of our table that will give you all the inspiration you need to decorate your Thanksgiving table!

If you are visiting our site for the first time, welcome! Just so you know a little more about us, we are Danielle Gibson Events and we are dedicated to executing flawless corporate events, weddings and social parties in Napa Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. In the past few months while the events industry has been on pause, we wanted to make sure people were still celebrating safely at home and have taken this opportunity to share our expert tips and tricks in our blog posts and collaborations like this virtual tasting with St. Supéry! 

Whether you are welcoming your quaranTEAM members into your home or keeping this year small with your immediate family, we always recommend having a welcome beverage ready to kick off the evening. It should be something light like a rosé, white wine, or perhaps a sparkling water with a twist and should be served in a wine glass to elevate the experience. Not a fan of wine charms but still want to make sure wine glasses don’t get mixed up? Use our favorite felt wine-o’s to personalize each glass, we recommend stacking your favorite colors so you can easily remember which glass is yours!  

SETTING THE SCENE

Inspirational photos from Pinterest

With the chaos that has been this year, many people have taken this time as an opportunity to renovate their living spaces to make said space even more comfortable for working, learning, and doing a majority of living from home. We took inspiration from this renewed idea of comfort to create our Thanksgiving table this year. As seen from the pictures above, we wanted to welcome the fall season with different shades of warm earthy tones similar to those found in nature during this time of year. When we think of feeling cozy, layering is one of the first words that popped in our head. To execute this idea, we loved the concept of using a monochromatic color scheme paired with different textures, something that you can see above in the linens, ceramics, and florals, both dried and alive. With these pictures in mind, we set out to find you the perfect pieces to create your own Thanksgiving table!  

THE TABLE

First layer: Linens and Accessories

We began our layering with a sable colored linen tablecloth from Hale Mercantile Co., and a waffled natural colored linen tablecloth from Parachute. We love both of these companies as they are dedicated to producing quality, long-lasting products. Fun facts: all of Hale Mercantile Co.’s linens are grown, spun, dyed, woven and sewn in Europe to ensure quality and Parachute’s linens are Oeko-Tex certified, meaning they are made without any harmful chemicals or synthetics! These tablecloths are great investments and will prove to be staple pieces for any future household entertaining.

For napkins, we love to employ cloth (we use them daily) rather than creating waste with paper. There are so many brands selling wonderful designs in all price ranges and for our table, we chose solid colors with interesting texture from Serena and Lily and Food52

We opted on adding a woven place mat to sneak in a bit more texture here. There are a plethora of great designs out there today, but we went with this simple design from World Market. For the napkin rings we added a variety of options so that we could have details to appeal to everyone! Whether that be ceramic, felt, rope, and leather, we have you covered! Our leather ties are DIY! 

Dishes

We LOVE to have a mix of place settings because it makes the table more interesting with all the different layers. Not everyone has to have the same plate, the more random the better!

Lulu and Georgia:

Small Wooden Plates

From Crate and Barrel: 

Medium Wooden Plate

Blush Matt Glazed Plate

Off-White Speckled Plate 

From Target – Hearth and Hand by Magnolia:

White Speckle Glazed Plate with Tan Edge

White Speckle Glazed Bowl with Tan Edge

Small White Melamine and Bamboo Bowl

Small Terracotta Melamine and Bamboo Bowl

Large Terracotta Melamine and Bamboo Bowl

Large White Melamine and Bamboo Bowl

Target Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee:

Decorative Wooden Bead Garland

Flatware

We like to keep it simple and classic. We love this gold flatware set from Design Within Reach and our treasured Laguiole steak knives. We’ve had these pieces for years and they always match perfectly with any table. Enough said.

Glassware

For our glassware we wanted to mix heights to give the table more dimension. These short gem tumblers in the color Amber from Food52 come in sets of four and help tie in our neutral color  palette as well. For wine glasses, we used Reidel Glasses to incorporate a more traditional look and it is always recommended to use this type of stemware to get the best smell and tastes out of your wine.  

Lighting 

We like to set the lights low and to bring in lots of candles to brighten up the table evoking a cozy intimate atmosphere. Just like in the case of the glassware, we wanted to incorporate votives and candle holders at varying heights. This set of 12 votives gives you plenty of candles to sprinkle around your table, the more the better! We complemented these more traditional, short votives with this fun duo taper candlestick holder from Lulu and Georgia and a few single white ceramic candlestick holders from West Elm. When using a monochromatic color scheme, you want to make sure to use the colors in creative ways. In this case, we substituted traditional white candle sticks for these taupe-colored taper candles from Lulu and Georgia. 

Paper Goods

Our menu is from one of our favorite graphic designers, Blushtype. This menu/place card combination is the perfect way to elevate your table and the beautiful layers and elements help tie-in our theme in a delicate way. We have no doubt that this will be a standout moment for your guests.

Serving Platters

We continue to bring the layers into how we serve food. We pulled platters that are similar in style to our dinner plates, so that while they bring in different sizes, they still fit in with the rest of our tablescape. This long oval bowl from Lulu and Georgia, shallow salad bowl and serving platter from San Francisco Bay area favorite Heath Ceramics, and a simple mango wood chopping board from Ikea are the perfect combination of looks. Using different shapes and materials keeps the table interesting. 

Florals

For our floral arrangements, we decided to display two options; fresh and dried. We partnered with one of our favorite florists, Erin from Scarlett & Grace, to bring you the best of the best!

The fresh florals can be described as a full and lush look with a mix of terracotta, peach, buttery yellow, and burgundy tones. This design has depth with flowers tucked in and arching out to keep the guests looking closer to see what they can find within the design. When shopping at a local grocery store like Trader Joes, look for these flowers to complete your look: Garden Roses, Lilies, Mini Carnations, Mums, Ranunculus, Shrimp Bush, Zinnia, Pepper Tree, Eucalyptus

The dried florals are a bit more edited than the fresh version, with multiple small pieces that can be nestled amongst your serving platters. The look has a variety of heights and dried textural elements so the guests have multiple views depending on where they are sitting. Some bud vases are filled with all one type of flower paired with others that are more designed. The whole table could be made using the “mono-flower” vases (the one flower type look) for a more modern streamlined feel. 

Before you set out to create your tables, we want to say a special thank you to our film and photography team, Olin and Josh from Milou and Olin Photography and Giggle and Riot for capturing our table. They are an incredible addition to any event, and we recommend them to document your special moments big and small! 

That’s it! Share photos with us of your finished tables on social media by tagging @daniellegibsonevents. Don’t forget to enjoy a glass or two of St. Supéry Rosé and some Spiced Butternut Squash Purée.

Want to see more decorating ideas for the Holidays?

See our 2019 Friendsgiving at Cerf Club, San Francisco
Check out our Pinterest Board to get inspired for your
Friendsgiving and Thanksgiving!

PopUp Sonoma Party

July 23, 2017

One party we love to participate in every year is HandMade Events’ PopUp Party. Nicole and her husband Garrett have been throwing their PopUp Party since 2011 in several cities around the US. Sonoma is our local party of choice and we always have a great team that helps pull it all together.

How to attend?

To attend a PopUp Party, you need to purchase tickets on the HandMade Events website. (usually a few months before) Tickets sell out fast, so buy them when they go live! For $40 a ticket, HandMade Events supplies you with a seat at a table, music, lighting, and restrooms and the rest is up to you. Most people come as a group and delegate the responsibilities for decor, food, beverages, and tableware. Our group has been attending for three years and DGE is (of course) responsible for decor. We also bring lots of wine since my husband is in the wine industry and always wants to enjoy something from his cellar.

Here are some photos of from this year’s event:

popup party design board

We were inspired by boho vibes this year.

Pulling all the pieces together is fun, loading into the party…not so much fun. If you are ever thinking of changing careers and being an event planner, one thing to know…it’s a lot of schlepping!

sonoma popup party

Table setup!

sonoma popup party

Ta da! The finished table.

Several wonderful vendors were used to create this look that we would like to thank! See below how you can create this look for our own party.sonoma popup party

We started off the night with lots of rosé fun! We opened a jerobaum bottle of our favorite rosé, Azur. We did something most wine drinkers don’t do…poured our rosé into disco ball tumblers from Packed Party to get the party started. If you follow us on Instagram, you know we are obsessed with these disco balls. They are so much fun to drink out of and they always put a smile on everyone’s face…look for our upcoming party where we will be using hundreds of these!

P.S. -A Jerobaum wine bottle is the size of two magnums!sonoma popup party

Floral Design

Soulflower was our florist for the event. We are loving pampas grass at the moment and not only does it match perfectly for a white party, but it’s big and makes a great statement without spending a lot of money. It also looks so pretty blowing in the wind, giving the relaxed Bohemian vibe we were looking for. We used potted plants to add greenery to the table to give it an earthy look with lots of different textures.

Linens

La Tavola was our linen of choice for something simple, flowy and organic feeling to keep with our boho theme. We chose the Tuscany Eggshell fabric. The feel of the linen material is perfect with the theme and the eggshell color is a little bit less harsh then a bright white shade. We also had the eggshell napkins to match.

sonoma popup party

Table Runners

We thought the look of these macrame runners were perfect for the theme. We found them in Cost Plus World Market for under $40! We used two of them for a 16-foot table since they were 6 feet long each. (We could have used three to have more of the macrame design on the table).

Tableware

Pulling the whole look together definitely happened with the help of Encore Events and their tabletop pieces; flatware, wicker chargers, and glassware. The wicker chargers added a great pop of a natural feel to the table while the flatware and amber glassware brought in a stylish flare that’s on point for tabletop design at the moment.

Place Cards

The place cards by Studio Noel were so awesome and different than what we have done in the past. The owner of Studio Noel, Brittni Fisher, is totally killing it with her business! We had so many people ask who made the place cards, so I hope she gets lots of new customers! The place cards were made of wood, another layer of texture that added to the final look of the table.sonoma popup party

Votive Candle Holders

We have been using our Concrete Geometric votive holders for lots of events. They have such a great look and are even better when you stack them and create a different design each time. They are neutral so you can use them for almost any table design.

All of the food was homemade by our friends who attended the party. Here are some pics of what we enjoyed: beef tenderloin, gold leaf deviled eggs, tomatoes with burrata, and poached salmon… just to name a few.

sonoma white party food

At the end of the night, the DJ always makes the last hour so much fun!

Of course, none of these elements would appear quite so nice without the hard work of HandMade Events’ photographer, Allyson Wiley.

XOXO
Danielle

As the World Turns

July 6, 2015

I recently saw these beautiful globes made by 1Canoe2 and had to find a way to use them as creative event elements. Presto! My graduation event I was planning would be perfect.  I bought a few for table decor but I thought doing custom globes for the family could be fantastic- right? Danielle Gibson Events - graduation globe, hand lettering, calligraphy

So we purchased a few antique globes at Etsy and had my friend fancy them up for me with her beautiful calligraphy. She did a fabulous job! So happy with the results and so was the family!

Danielle Gibson Events - graduation globe, hand lettering, calligraphy

Danielle Gibson Events - graduation globe, hand lettering, calligraphyHere is the finished table design at the party…Danielle Gibson Events - graduation globe, hand lettering, calligraphy-XOXO, Danielle

What a fun evening… good friends, food, wine, and a picturesque location! This year was my first time attending one of HandMade Events’ PopUp Parties. I have always seen photos on social media and was curious to experience it in-person.  I met with Nicole Benjamin-Sathre, part owner of HandMade Events earlier this year and was looking forward to seeing her event in action. We bought our tickets and joined everyone dressed in all white at the Sonoma event (held at Jack London Park). What a fantastic time!
IMG_4559 IMG_4543 IMG_4540 popup party dinner tableOur table: white, gold (of course!), and surrounded by fur!IMG_4559plate and cookie at popup partyMenus + a cookie tower dessert!popup party at jack london parkThe beautiful location! Jack London Park, surrounded by grape vines and mountain ranges.

-XOXO, Danielle

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