It’s no secret that I LIVE for themed events, I studied Event Management at University & it’s an industry I hope to revisit one day.
I love every single aspect of planning these large events & when the Boss asked me to plan a surprise birthday party for one of his dear friends, I was 200% onboard with the idea. I sent the Owners 3 themed ideas & they came back with their top pick.. 007 Casino Royale.
For this particular evening event, we had 18 guests onboard and served a 5 course set menu. In an effort to ensure everything just right, we starting working on deco & bar concepts weeks in advance.
Napkin Fold
Every place setting had a black napkin folded into a dinner jacket. I created custom menus to replicated Ace playing cards & placed them inside the napkin. To finish off each setting, every gold charger was dressed with a black bow tie & red rose.
Name Cards
To ensure the guests wouldn’t feel as though they had to sit in a certain spot, we decided against name cards. Instead, I printed out photographs of every actor that has every played James Bond throughout the years. Inside of the photo card were 5 unique facts about each actor & their time as Mr. Bond. This turned out to be a great conversation starter for the guests when they first sat down.
Glassware
This was a very special occasion, so a champagne toast was a must! All settings had a champagne, water, red & white wine glass. Every individual course had a unique wine paring that was offered to all guests. (Thankfully the deck team were super helpful washing all of this glassware during service!)
Deco Pieces
I purcahsed 2 oversized martini glasses, filled the bottom with playing dice & then floated 24 red roses on the top. To keep with the Casino Royale theme, I purchased several packs of playing cards & in numerical order, using a hot glue gun, I placed around the outside of square glass vases. All of the vases were then filled with red roses. Playing cards were fanned out and placed down the table & gold votive candle holders put out just before the guests sat for dinner. It was quite a tight table for 18 guests!
Behind the table, we had large 007 balloons & 6 wine buckets ready with ice to ensure the champagne and white wine was served at the perfect temperature.
For more info on our 007 martini bar, click here!
Cake
The chef made 3 birthday cakes, one for the guest to blow the candles out on & two to serve to the guests. Carrot Cake was requested along with 100 candles. It was no small task trying to fit that many candles on the cake! The guests all LOVED it & there was just enough left over for the crew to have a few pieces (the BEST when finishing work at 4:30am!)
The night lasted until the wee hours of the morning & the following day we had another large celebration for July 4th with 24 guests. Its busy guest trips like this that are full of themed events, large dinner parties & very happy guests that reminds me just how much I love my job.
Gem xo
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