30th Birthday Summer Soiree

Last summer, my best friend Sarah and I (born exactly 8 days apart!) celebrated our 30th birthdays together with a Summer Soiree! If you know me, you know #geminiseason is a big deal and there is always at least one theme party each year to celebrate Sarah and myself. Since this was a super special milestone birthday, Sarah and I decided it was only right to celebrate this one together!

The vision was a Mexican-inspired (but not appropriated) summer fiesta with a heavy emphasis on flowers for decor. I had fallen in love with bold summer color palettes last year (here’s a whole Pinterest board of inspo!) including red, orange, yellow, magenta, purple, and a touch of turquoise to really set it off. Because I wanted this to be beautiful and less “cutesy” than our past theme parties, I wanted to focus more on the colors, which could be done through the rentals and florals.

We used wooden farm tables with gold Chiavari chairs from CE Rental. Alternating colors of napkins lay underneath the patterned chargers that gave me ceramic tile vibes. Gold flatware is always a must for me, and specialty glassware has become a trademark of our Gemini parties! This year, instead of making custom glasses to fit the theme, I found these gorgeous blue-rimmed glasses made in Mexico that resembled the similar margarita glasses I’ve always thought were so fun! I actually found the glasses at a Homegoods, but it took me every (not kidding, EVERY) Homegoods in the Raleigh-Durham area and some stock-employee stalking to find enough for all our guests. DO NOT REGRET!

It’s no secret I love some taper candles and I was excited to bring in more color through orange, yellow, pink, and turquoise tapers in brass candlesticks down the table. Other fun details were colorful mini cacti in terracotta pots, turquoise votives, and my absolute favorite part…a ceramic kitchen utensil crock that paired well with the patterned chargers, turned into a vase. You can’t see from the photos, but the inside of the crock was a terracotta color to match the pots…seriously it was perfect! Even better, Sarah had been looking for a crock, so it was a good justification for yet another Homegoods purchase. ;)

I headed to Piedmont Wholesale Flowers in Durham on that Wednesday to pick out our blooms! I was a newbie to the wholesale flower biz, so unfortunately by the time I got there most had been wiped out. However, I was able to snag some dahlias, bachelor’s buttons, yellow daisies, and a few others. Since I needed these to last through Saturday, I turned our house into an icebox and continued to move the buckets of blooms from the laundry room to our master bathroom each day as they are the chilliest two rooms in the house. Luckily Kendall was out of town through Friday that week, but he was not happy to find out I had the air on 67 degrees while he was gone, ha! I used carnations (let’s PLEASE stop giving them a bad rap), peonies, and roses from Trader Joe’s and Harris Teeter to supplement the other blooms. I wanted lots of summer flowers in bold colors! I spent Friday night after everyone else had gone to bed arranging the florals. Obviously I’m not a pro, but flower arranging is something I find so relaxing and fun. I loved how all the bold colors came together and as you can tell from the photos below, I was obsessed with these arrangements!

We usually host our parties outside on the patio, but with a high chance of storms that evening it was easier to clear out the living room furniture and run the table down the center of the room, which worked out since we have a turquoise rug in there already! Not going to lie, it was so fun to completely mix up the furniture like that and for a good week I tried to convince Kendall to get a 12 seater dining room table and switch the two rooms permanently, lol! That probably wouldn’t be practical, but it was super fun while it lasted.

We had a taco bar with all the fixin’s, lots of margaritas, and a delicious chocolate cake our friend Dawn made. It was another #geminiseason party for the books and we had the best time celebrating our 30th birthdays with friends! While we are taking a year off this year (wedding budget!) we can’t wait to get back to these again! (I’ve got themes for days!)

Hope you enjoy these photos of the evening!

And the rest of these pics are close ups of these amazing blooms! I just couldn’t choose! Big shoutout to Piedmont Wholesale Flowers in Durham!