Cinco de Mayo Dinner Party

It all started with my husband and I wanting to invite some friends over for dinner… except when you are a blogger, you can’t handle just hosting a potluck like a normal person. Instead, I wanted to spoil my guests with a four course dinner and I decided on a mexican theme to unite the menu.  Of course, I got a little carried away ended up planning an entire Cinco de Mayo dinner party fiesta complete with mini piñatas!

I knew I wanted to combine succulents with fresh florals to create the centrepiece for the table and I decided to plant the succulents inside classic clay pots.  Playing with flowers is seriously one of my favourite things, so stopped by Academy Florist to pick up some gorgeous blooms and then arranged everything myself.  I originally had imagined peonies and protea to be the star of my centrepieces but neither ended up being available. Instead I found the most incredible ranunculus that stole the show and paired beautiful with the pincushion protea & pink hypericum berries I picked out.

Whether you bake it yourself, or order it from a bakery, a cake can be a beautiful part of your tablescape! Not only does it add visual interest to your table, but it also gives your guests something sweet to look forward to (and is a subtle reminder to “save room for dessert”). For my cake, I baked a simple tall cake and drizzled it with tinted white chocolate ganache. I topped it with some fresh fruit & florals left over from the centrepiece.

I had planned on creating a stacked vanilla tall cake filled with fresh lime curd. However, a friend of mine asked me to bake her a red velvet cake for her anniversary and I mixed up the dates (I was literally a month early haha!!!) So, since I had already made a red velvet cake, I scrapped my original dessert idea and served the red velvet cake instead. Although it didn’t really go with my Mexican theme, most of my guests ended up having second servings of cake so no complaining there!

The diy mini piñatas are my favourite element from the dinner party. Together with my friend Danielle (who is seriously amazing btw!), we cut out donkey shapes from cardboard then carefully taped them together to create 3D forms. We filled each piñata with candy then covered them with tissue paper we cut into fringed strips.  The other diy element I included was the fringed stir sticks. By cutting strips of brightly coloured tissue paper and wrapping it around the top of simple wooden skewers I was able to create simple but festive stir sticks!

Cinco de Mayo is only two days away!  How will you be celebrating? I’d love it if you’d leave a comment letting me know if you plan on doing something special.  Hasta Luego!