entertaining / syd's bon voyage party

sorry for the radio silence the past few days! i have been way too distracted helping syd get ready from her mission (and exhausted at the end of every day). we finally sent her off today! she will be serving a mission in costa rica for the next year and a half. this has been the first missionary our family has sent off and i'd say we are doing pretty well so far. we are so excited to hear all about her experiences in costa rica.

before she left we threw her a little going away party. like most parties that bobette and i throw, we ended up doing everything last minute and throwing it together really quickly (exhibits a and b). we decided to go with a bon voyage/map/globe theme (although syd wouldn't let us write bon voyage because she won't be speaking french but spanish). we borrowed tons of globes and maps from our friends.

for the entry we put up some bunting and made a little (hand-drawn) adios sign. this was my first time ever using a sewing machine, and let me tell you, i am terrible at it. we had a bunch of strings of cut papers from this wedding, but i made a few that had map paper in them to go with everything else. we threw a couple of globes on the table and that amazing succulent vase. we added some baskets underneath for people's rainy shoes and umbrellas. you'll get details on our new favorite light later!

we put our dessert table in the dining room. we moved the dining room table against the hutch and put a vintage school map up as the backdrop. we used the leaf from the table as a pedestal for the globes we put on the table. we put a gray tray with the dessert napkins and plates, and had our emerald striped ikea tablecloth down. we used various white platters for serving the dessert.

this is our 'sydney shrine'. we got a large poster of her made at staples (the engineer prints are huge and only $3- we are kind of obsessed with them right now). we layered a world map, a map of california, and a map of costa rica. i got those ranunculus at the farmers market this weekend and have been adoring them ever since. i am a little bit too obsessed.

at the party we had to serve the classic carpenter sliders (that we served at my wedding and which my dad is famous for). we debated on how to present them without just having a pile of burgers and some disgusting toppings. we decided to put the burgers on their buns and have those on large platters. we still wanted everyone to make their dream slider, so we put toppings in little ramekins with little spoons. we had a platter of sliders and their toppings on each side of the table for crowd control (spreading the wealth is always a good idea). above the table we hung more shapes streamers and bunting. we had a giant globe as the centerpiece. oh and that tablecloth is actually my old shower curtain. it was 72x72 and fit perfectly on our square table- don't be afraid to use literally any linen that you have. 

this was such a fun and easy party to throw, and we were so happy to celebrate syd with all of the people we love!