beaujolais soiree [a recap]

i had a blast, to say the least, creating the table display for susan on last thursday's special french food and wine festival soiree. months before, susan had informed me about this event and we emailed back and forth about the details she would like the table display to have. we first agreed to do a soft shabby chic look with pastel colored macarons but soon we realized that the fall/autumn event would need more darker rich hues. i then thought of using her signature greeneyed susan logo colors but a tad darker.

fuschia pink, orange, green and chocolate were the colors we finally decided on and susan did her wonders on creating the most delicious macaron flavors to perfectly fit our colors. pistachio with nyangbo chocolate whipped ganache filling for the green macarons. pink was isapahan in honor of pierre herme's famous raspberry-lined isapahan pastry with raspberry rose, lychee and the filling was french white chocolate infused with raspberry pate de fruit. orange was salted butter with caramel cream filling (we ran out of this flavor before the event ended, it was sooo good). and lastly, cafe au lait fit the chocolate brown macaron with rich valhrona cocoa powder and espresso-infused buttercream filling (another popular flavor that night). all of these macaron flavor descriptions were typed up and framed in whimsical colorful wooden frames that were also displayed.

 

 

susan made the most amazing macaron tower which was a hit and even one lady ordered 4 macaron towers for a company holiday party! i envisioned a romantic-look for the table using minimal shabby chic elements like the birds (borrowed from my home and office), manzanita trees (the same trees my friend nina decorated for our friend katherine's pink and gold baby shower table centerpieces) which this time i hung DIY garlands to mimic dangling macarons and flower-filled tiny birdcages ($1 iron birdcages from michael's). i stole the DIY garland idea from bump smitten's post but this time i used glued colored paper punched with my scallop cutter and hung the garland on the manzanita trees (thanks nina for lending me the trees!).

wine choices for the evening and one more shot of the manzanita tree

it was a fun night and i truly enjoyed "working" our table that evening - getting people to try green eyed susan's macarons, meeting new friends and also trying out treats from famed houston restaurants like masraffs, valentino, ruggles, le mistral to name a few. thanks so much to susan for allowing me to decorate/style her macaron display and dear friend, nina for lending me two of the manzanita trees that i'm predicting will be used in more parties in the future (they're so versatile!). more pics (including some behind the scene shots) and stories will be posted by susan as soon as she gets back from a much needed quick vacation getaway before she fills ALL those macaron orders from that night!