Truthfully, Valentine’s Day is one of my least favorite holidays. (Or, rather, it used to be.) I was fully in the “overrated” camp when it came to February 14th, but a few years ago my husband and I decided to go against the grain and celebrate by throwing a fun Valentine’s Day party instead of feeling annoyed at the pressure to go to a restaurant, eat chocolates and buy roses. Now, three years later, it’s one of our favorite traditions! (Also, have I mentioned that I love to throw parties? Ha!)
This year’s theme was “Love Story,” which basically meant a night full of moody, melodramatic vibes. (Thankfully I was able to upcycle a ton of props from a styled shoot from last fall. #bonus) Also, be forewarned, I took about one million pictures of flowers because last year’s party(James Bond // “The Spy Who Loved Me”) called for exactly zero, and I enjoyed having a theme that screamed for florals finally.
I do have to say that as much as I love styling for this annual party, the best part is the people, my people. I love sitting around a big table with the close friends, laughing and telling stories and asking inappropriate questions. If being with the people you love is truly at the heart of Valentine’s Day, then this party (and this group) nails it. (And I know they love me, too, because they put up with my dressing up to match our theme each year, haha! That is true love and true friendship at its finest.)
Details // In our dining room, we set up a savory charcuterie + a sweets board, as well as a board for the chef’s apps. Two of the boards are from a local flea market and the third is (drum roll) a section of left over butcher block from a recent project. (So fancy. Or maybe, rather, resourceful??) I draped some dusty mauve velvet (Amazon) over our table and kept the rest pretty simple — except for those boards, which I crammed full of every delicious thing the grocery had to offer. (My people can throw down a lot of apps!) We hire a bartender each year to serve drinks, which we set up in my husband’s office across from the dining room. The decor is minimal in there and consists mostly of bottles and bottles and bottles of alcohol, haha!
We had eight couples at the party this year, meaning we needed a lot of space to seat everyone. My husband and I decided the best thing would be to clear our living room for dinner. (Bye, couch! Enjoy your vacation to the garage.) We used four card tables set up in a square and some leftover MDF (to fill in the center spot) to create a table big enough for our group. I covered the beast of an eyesore with white tablecloths and more velvet in a dark wine color from Hobby Lobby. To break up the velvet (which can get heavy visually) I pulled apart an old book and used the pages along the draping. Candles (including some throw-back glass jar candles I fell in love with at Target for suuuuper cheap), Himalayan pink sea salt rocks, and lots of flowers from Trader Joe’s filled up the table. (Seriously, Trader Joe’s is a magical land filled with beautiful, cheap flowers. So. Good.) I have a big bin of tarnished silver vessels n’ things that I’ve collected over the years from Goodwill that worked perfectly for this theme’s florals. For each place setting, I watercolored a page from an antique book and lettered the guests’ names. I was able to repurpose the menu from the styled shoot that I mentioned, and just changed the items to match our party.
The “backdrop” of the dining area was out built-ins, and, quite frankly, I was too lazy to undo our normal decor just for one night. So instead I used tension rods and some leftover tulle drapes from IKEA to soften the look. Peach drapes (Wal-mart) + more of the dusty mauve velvet covered our mantle. And then I just carried the table decor up onto the fireplace to finish off the space. I struggled with how to handle our TV and decided the easiest thing to do was to just create a graphic that matched our theme (until the sun went down and the candlelight took over!) with one of my favorite quotes from Great Expectations:
I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace,
against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.
Here’s to those we love being together in one place for the day meant to celebrate the love between us! And to many more Valentine’s Day parties to come!