Pink & Peach Easter Dinner Party

Whew.
That’s all I really have to say after putting this dinner party together. It was a bit stressful trying to cook, decorate, and photograph all at the same time while racing the setting sun, but beyond the day-of craziness it was tons of fun to plan and execute. Many thanks to my hubby for being my helper. He gives great decor advice, is a better cook than I am, and kindly goes with the flow when he is voluntold to do random things. I love how it all turned out.

Especial thanks to some awesome brands I got to work with as well. The gorgeous yummy candles are from Voluspa, the amazeballs cake is from Studio Sweets in Vacaville, CA, and the rentals that tie it all together are from Classic Party Rentals, which has locations all over, though I worked with the one in Napa. I want to write paragraphs about each of these brands and how much I love them, but keep reading for all the party deets and links to the recipes:

Rentals
The tablecloth, china, gold flatware and napkins are all from Classic Party Rentals. There are tons of rental companies here in the Bay but they are the only one that stood out to me, so it was kind of a no-brainer contacting them, and I was so happy the feeling was mutual. How gorgeous are all these pieces??

Candles
I can’t even express how obsessed hubby and I are with Voluspa candles. You should recognize them if you love to peruse the knick knacks at Anthropologie and Nordstrom like I do. Whenever we come across their candles my hubs always tells me stories about his freshman year of college when he was super hipster and would sit around reading newspapers and burning his favorite Voluspa Ebony & Peach candle. He’s still pretty hipster and we still have their candles all over our house, we love them. I used their larger candles for decorations, and these sweet mini tins as favors, all in Pink Citron, Suede Blanc, and Saijo Persimmon, so yummy.

Easter Cake
Keep scrolling for more photos, but how gorgeous is this cake?? I’m completely smitten by Samantha’s creations at Studio Sweets. She makes all sorts of elaborate cakes, but after sending her my haphazard Easter Pinterest board, she came up with this beautiful thing that hubby and I couldn’t stop heart-eyeing over. I mean just look at those cute bunny ears and the gold foil and flowers. By the way, it’s carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. So perfect for Easter!

Pink & Gold Easter Eggs
What is Easter without eggs, amiright? At first, I had used my gel food coloring to dye some eggs, but although they were pastel colors they came out nearly neon on the eggs, so…that didn’t work out great. So on my second attempt I tried out spray paint and it was painless and turned out perfect. I sprayed them with a matte pastel pink, then used a gold paint pen either polka-dotting or stamping. I absolutely love how the floral stamped ones came out, but here is a tip: the smaller the stamp the better. In fact, what I did was I used the gold paint pen to paint on just one small section of my stamp. If you go too big then there is a better chance of slipping on the rounded egg edges.

Flowers
The flowers are all from Whole Foods. In terms of selection and value I feel like not much can beat them. The bright pink ranunculus didn’t really match my planned color scheme but they were so pretty I couldn’t help throwing them in.

Tables, Pillows, Blankets
Ikea was honestly my best friend for this. I really wanted to do this low table idea, so I found these Ikea end tables for literally $8 each, bought six, and lined them up together. They are just a bit taller than I ideally wanted, but totally work, and now hubby and I also finally have nightstands haha! The blankets and pillows are also super cheap finds at Ikea. The blankets were only $10 and the pillows were like $7. You just can’t beat that. Keep scrolling for recipes!

Roasted Carrots with Chives.

Mama’s Deviled Eggs. There are all kinds of unique spins on deviled eggs out there, but nothing could ever beat my mama’s. I make them just how she taught me, with only one tweak.

Braised Lamb Shanks over Creamy Polenta. These turned out better than I even hoped. The butcher recommended cutting into the bones so that the marrow would escape when cooking and make for a more flavorful dish. Glad I took him up on that. These were falling-off-the-bone tender and so delicious. I got hubby to braise them along with some vegetables that he afterwards pureed into a super yummy gravy, and served it all over creamy polenta.

Root Vegetable Gratin. It doesn’t look like much, but this is one of my favorite holiday dishes and surprisingly the most expensive besides the lamb. It’s an adaptation from my beloved Ina Garten, and contains all sorts of yummy things like celery root, fennel, sweet potato, etc. tied together with a light cream sauce and Gruyere cheese.

Strawberry Rhubarb Mocktail. Actually I’m still working on this one, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations so I’m tweaking the recipe. Stay tuned.