the park & grove blog

June 11th, 2014  |  Comments (0)

a purple party for non-purple people

We have to be honest, we’re definitely not purple people. It seems to us like most people fall into one of two categories, those who like purple, and those who like everything but purple, and we seem to fall into the latter. As fate would have it, we were hired to do a party for the Northwestern University Arts and Sciences department and call it irony or sweet revenge, but the University’s signature color is purple. We set out to design an event that was both gorgeous and tailored, yet still looked and felt like Northwestern. We wanted a florist who could make magic with any color, so obviously, we knew we had to work with the amazing Kate Holt from Flowerwild. Per usual, her deep purple and crisp white tablescapes were stunning and brought the whole event to life. Instead of a traditional menu, we worked with Papel Paper & Press to design a plum menu belly bands to wrap around the napkin, which ended up being our favorite detail of the night! To allow the purple to really pop, we decided to keep the rest of the decor super neutral using our favorite mother-of-pearl flatware, glass silver rimmed chargers, greyish fog linens and dark wood chairs. For the menu, we knew we wanted the food and libations to remind guests of a day in college, so we enlisted Jennifer Naylor and The Roger Room to help us create something fun and playful. Jennifer Naylor brought together both art and science by presenting the most gorgeous food we could have imagined and for dessert, she created a “chocolate reaction” with dry ice, floating ice cream and pop rocks, that truly blew our mind. The Roger Room concocted a bevy of fantastic purple cocktails that tasted as incredible as they looked. However, the best part of the night was the amazing people that came together to celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of the Northwestern Arts and Sciences departments. The night was marked by a series of speakers and performances highlighting Northwestern’s contributions to music, theatre and cancer research. We were so blessed to be a part of a something that honored such an extraordinary institution that, just for a moment, we were quite possibly cured from our fear of purple. Thank you Peter Bohler for the beautiful images - to check out more, see our new portfolio post HERE! xoxo Sarah & Marla