Knights of Columbus Installation Dinner

Hosting a dinner party is so much fun, so when we had the opportunity to move the annual Knights of Columbus out of the sterile church cafeteria into our back yard, we were thrilled! Hubby is entering his second year as Grand Knight, which made this event all the more meaningful. So proud of him.

When it comes to party planning, no one does it better than my friend Kylie of Made by a Princess: Parties in Style. I mean seriously, she’s good. When it came to the KoC party, I knew I was hosting an outdoor potluck but wanted to make it a bit classier and less mishmashed casserole dishes, if you know what I mean. After a quick call to explain my challenge, Kylie shared some great ideas: using our own dishware/serving platters so the dishes matched, sticking cloves in lemons to help ward off bugs (plus, they look adorable), and more.

I took her tips, and created the blue-and-gold Knights of Columbus party shown below! Love the way everything came out. I think I might start to look at a new marble dining table set ready for my next event. Yes… I am already thinking of next year’s dinner…

For the main table, I created a main focal area in the center of the table towards the back. As the Knights of Columbus’ colors are blue and gold, I themed as much as possible with this color scheme. The lemons worked great not only to help fight the bugs, but to create a very summery feel to all the centerpieces – plus, they fit the color scheme perfectly! Hubby was great as he helped shop for blue and yellow flowers…it took three different stores to find enough to fill the nine vases we had. A tip: blue flowers – at least those this blue – are artificially colored, and the color will leach into the water. So, put the flowers in the final water just before the party unless you want your water to turn blue (as mine inadvertently did). As it was a potluck, I made dessert – four dozen chocolate mini cupcakes with white frosting. I tried to avoid adding artificial food coloring (there’s less than nothing good about that stuff) so sprinkled colored sugar in blue and yellow. This mini cupcake stand has been my go-to for more events than I can count! Lastly, I used a chalkboard with that new cool liquid chalk markers to write out a message to the officers…both the old and new.

When it came to the individual dining tables, I used these gorgeous little hanging mason jars that my mom had given me for Christmas a few years ago. They’re intended to be hung with tea lights, but I’ve used them as centerpiece holder all the time. They’re just the right size for a table centerpiece – not to small that they get lost but not too tall that people have to peak around the centerpiece to talk to each other. Now – getting the lemons in the jars was quite a challenge. To do this, I had to stick a plastic cup (it’s white, and you can just make it out in the photos) inside each mason jar. This left about a 1/4″ space between the outside of the white cup and the inside of the mason jar – perfect for sliding a lemon slice between. Lemon slices float, so it was important to figure out a way to keep them weighted down. I also threw in some glass baubles in white and blue that I had on hand. Cute, no? They worked great clumped together like this on a side table during the ceremony, and then were right on hand to place as individual centerpieces when we did a quick reconfig on the yard for dinner.

For the ceremony itself, we used one of the large tables as the podium. I’m a HUGE fan of simple white linen table cloths (we have six of them, all the same. Yep – six.). They work perfect for ANY season, as they’re simple, classy, and pair perfectly with whatever theme you want to have. A bonus? When they’re dirty, just throw them in the wash with some bleach and they come out just like new. The main table for the ceremony had, as it’s base layer, one of the white tablecloths. I already had these great yellow and blue stripped placemats, so we laid three of them side-by-side to create a faux table runner…and it totally worked. I placed a large vase with lemons and flowers as the side (center) piece – to be honest, this was the last vase and I was both tired of slicing lemons and running short on time so just stuck the lemons whole into the vase 🙂 I still think it looks cute, and added a bit of variety to the centerpieces. In prep for the ceremony, we placed the KoC medals around the vase and along the table runner.

When it came to the serveware, we opted for disposable. I didn’t have enough ceramic dishware or silverware to accommodate 50 people – plus, with the great quality now available out there for picnic-ware, you don’t have to sacrifice quality or design to get a great look. In keeping with the general color theme, I opted for plain white paper plates (the high density kind), clear silverware (I think that always looks the classiest), and white napkins (again, classy vs. too much blue & yellow). We placed each type of silverware into a blue tin – I had these on hand from past get togethers, and find they work really well for large groups. I was tempted to do one of the bundles – you know, those cute little napkin-wrapped-silverware packages tied off with cute twine? – but with so many dishes, soups, appetizers, and folks going back for seconds (and thirds), we wanted to provide the most flexible option to our guests.