A golden (girls) birthday

The assignment:

a golden birthday celebration

The goal:

incorporate a secondary theme, the Golden Girls

Tricks to pulling off the look:

1. Gold, gold everywhere

2. Incorporate the guests into the theme

3. Keep the florals colorful

Making it golden

Since this was my daughter’s golden birthday and the Golden Girls are a beloved family tradition, it was only fitting that her golden birthday would include the girls.  I wanted gold everywhere but didn’t want to use exclusively gold, so I decided that pink and peach would be secondary colors to balance things out.  Knowing that there would be a lot of gold, I focused on incorporating various textures (sequins, leaves, glass bulbs, confetti, floral picks, purses, all the way down to the sugar coating on the strawberries) to keep things visually exciting.

Including guests in the theme

I love providing guests with an opportunity to participate in the theme.  It seemed fun for each person to claim a persona when they walked in the door by selecting a Rose, Blanche, Sophia, or Dorothy pin to wear.  I also jumped at the opportunity to include certain family members’ baking expertise into the table spread by asking two people to make their “famous” lemon and chocolate cakes.  Coupled with cheesecake (duh!) and strawberry shortcake,  an immersive cake experience was created.   This allowed guests to sample and discuss each cake (an activity that our family takes very seriously) and it added a nice personal touch to the experience.

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Keeping the florals colorful

Even though pink and peach served as my secondary colors, the florals still needed to be colorful, because when I think of the Golden Girls and Miami, I think color.  This became a good opportunity to work blues and purples into the arrangements to add a certain pop.  My absolute favorite part of the entire decor is the flamingos standing in the arrangements (and on the cakes and in the front yard) because nothing screams Miami like bright pink flamingos.