Dinner on the Pier – Peter’s 43rd Birthday

Oh you guys, I have been dying to write this post!!  I had this dinner for Peter on October 3rd and unfortunately things have been so darn busy since then, I did not have time to commit to a quality post.  Finally, here it comes!!

Peter’s birthday is on October 5th.  Well, this year, a girlfriend of mine was having her 40th birthday party in Philadelphia and I truly did not want to miss it.  Peter was completely supportive and didn’t hesitate me sharing his day with Carly.  But, the wife guilt was still in full effect.  Everything happens for a reason and that guilt led to this amazing evening and I could not be more excited to share it with you guys.

I had been constantly thinking of something ‘different’ or outside the box I could do for his birthday and one afternoon, I was pulling in the driveway looking at the pier and it hit me, DINNER ON THE PIER!!!  I was so excited the ideas just kept flowing.

• It was October so I wanted to run with a Fall theme…sunflowers and pumpkins would be the major accessories.
• I wanted Fall plaids for the table and if possible matching wraps in case it was chilly that evening.  When I looked online (Amazon and Walmart) everything was at least $20 each and just too expensive to justify in case this was just a one time event.  A friend of mine suggested heading to Joanne’s Fabric and create them myself…GENIUS (thank you Courtney!!)
• While I wanted a casual vibe with the linens and pumpkins and sunflowers, I also wanted a bit of elegance, so I rented chiavari chairs from Bailey’s.
• I knew I wanted cafe lights to outline the end of the pier.  But, I wanted to do them in a way that could easily be duplicated so I could do this again.  My neighbor Ron helped me install and even though it was 98 degrees the Tuesday before, we got it done so quickly and easily.
  • I bought 6 PVC pipes at 6 feet each
  • I spray painted them silver to look like real poles
  • I then used zip ties to simply wrap them to the pier pilings
  • Ron had copper hooks that we stuck in the top of the PVC pipes and that is what we put the cafe light cords in
  • luckily, we have electricity on the pier so no extension cords were necessary
• Finally, I lined the long part of the pier with candles in hurricanes for elegance but also to see where we were walking when it got dark outside.  Ron also added the rope as a temporary barrier so there were no “accidents” hahaha

Pretty much everything else was stuff I already had at home – wedding china plates, gold flatware, glass chargers (I am obsessed with these!!), blue water glasses, mason jars as vases, store bought flowers (McKays had amazing sunflowers at the time!!), blue glass water bottles and linen napkins (in Natural) from Target.

We used the dock box as a mini bar and had music playing from the boat.

The menu was a collection of Peter’s favorite things.

Appetizers were a charcuterie plate placed on a cutting board my cousin’s husband, Mike, made and roasted shrimp cocktail Louis (an Ina Garten recipe).

Dinner was filet mignon, shaved Parmesan and arugula salad with a homemade lemon vinaigrette and roasted cherry tomatoes (I halved mine).

// Shay’s adorable shirt //

// the girls’ cozy tops // the girls’ comfy pants //

All I can say is that it was a huge success.  We had absolutely perfect weather, bugs were not an issue and we truly could have stayed out there all night long.  At one point, I took a moment and looked around and just treasured that this is where we live and we were truly enjoying all it has to offer.

I also made sure that I did the lights and table (our old deck table) and plaid linens in a way that it could all be VERY easily duplicated.  And I proved that theory correct this past weekend as we had appetizers and cocktails on the deck again with some friends 🙂