Greek Inspired Dinner Party

It’s been a little while since I’ve hosted a dinner party (well, aside from Thanksgiving). It made me remember how much I missed it! I love coming up with a color scheme, finding dishes to match, and designing a centerpiece.

I have a group of girl friends that gets together once a month or so for a potluck style dinner. We usually pick a theme for the food, and we’ve done Italian and Latin fare so far. Next up – Greek!

Of course I went through my entire stash of china and linens. The only thing I had that would work was my white ironstone china (mix n match) and gold flatware. I had ZERO blue linens, dishes, platters – ZILCH. Ugh, this seemed like a major oversight to me. How had I lived this long with such a gaping hole in my entertaining stash??

I resigned myself to purchasing some items – as long as they were cheap – despite my overall stance on minimalism and getting rid of stuff. Linens and dishes just make me happy, and I’ll probably never stop buying them, mmmmk?

Roaming around my usual haunts like Ross, TJ Maxx, and JoAnn’s yielded a single blue tablecloth and 8 gold chargers. The tablecloth wasn’t the perfect shade of blue, but I was happy 1) because the leaf for my table is a piece of MDF we cut ourselves so it requires a tablecloth and 2) it actually fit my non standard width table. $14.99 for something I will definitely use again? DEAL! The chargers were $10/for 4, but to be honest I really needed them. No, seriously. 

I decided on doing white candles, greenery, and  lemons for the centerpiece, so I cruised over to Michael’s for the candles. Thanks to a gift card from a friend, I only paid about $3 for the candle collection. While I would have loved salal (lemon leaf) for the greenery, I settled for seeded eucalyptus from Trader Joe’s.

After initially thinking I would sew napkins like I did for Thanksgiving, I quickly abandoned that idea when I remembered I was serving 8. Ain’t no one got time for that. Since I’d struck out at all my usual places, I did a little web surfing on Target, Pier 1, and World Market to see if I could eliminate more driving around town. I was totally stoked to find some blue/white striped napkins at World Market as well as a blue runner that would coordinate. The napkins were $2/ea and the runner was on sale for around $12. Score!

After I set the table, I was so pleased with the final look! It was festive, but not overly kitschy. Everyone had a great time and enjoyed the table setting. It was fun to flex those creative muscles again, and I really love the new additions to my stash! They will certainly be used again 🙂

Have you hosted any themed dinner parties??