Last weekend, we had the pride and privilege to share our eldest son Liam's First Holy Communion. It is such a special religious milestone, and we brimmed with pride at our young man.
We wanted a small but special celebration and decided to invite our very nearest and dearest family and friends to celebrate with us at home after the church service.
When thinking about themes, because that is what I do, I wanted something symbolic but not overtly religious. I toyed around with using patterns and colours as a theme and then I thought of stained glass windows - no more symbolic than that!
Onto the invitations and of course Nicole at Pretty and Print knew what I wanted immediately and her papery were nothing short of spectacular. I boxed up with the invitations and they were a simple and elegant start to our event.
Onto desserts! Stained glass theme needs to have a stained glass cake and desserts. That was easy enough to think through, but I wanted to match that with lots of crisp white. For the backdrop, I went backwards and forwards with many different ideas - but while chatting with my design buddy, we came up with "string art". That took me way back to school. So with a big bit of MDF, some nails and a hammer and different coloured string - the backdrop was made and I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it! It was the perfect silhouette for the table.
Always trying to find a DIY project or trying my hand at my own thing, I wanted to make some of my own risers and cake plates. The main riser at the back of the table is a long wood piece that I added some decorative wood feet to each end and painted white. The rectangle cake plates at the front of the table were made in the same way. This way I could design my own table and design the tableware around my thoughts.
The green cake stands on each side are simple white candle sticks from IKEA with wooden circles secured on top and then painted in my lime green colour. All of it came together to make the clean look of the table that I wanted. My table was not a huge table and I needed to utilise my space and I did not want it cluttered at all. My riser at the back was used as the display piece for the coloured candy in my design colours. All the candy was supplied by Leanne at Sweet Style. No fancy glass candy jars here, just plain tall drinking glasses.
Then onto the actual sweets for the sweet table. The cake – I wanted to make a stained glass effect cake and WOW I loved how it looked. The black lines were all piped on in their various lines and then all the windows were hand painted in different shades of the design colours. This was the perfect centrepiece for the table. I wanted to have a simple and uncomplicated array of coordinated desserts. Handpainted watercolour cookies were a colourful addition and the marbled macarons were sensational. The macarons were made by the macaron goddess Its a Cake by Jhoanee. Layered and coloured petit cakes stood at the front of the table and were topped with royal icing stained glass disks. Then the only other desserts were pannacotta shots topped with mini macarons.
Lastly, our celebration was a small family and friends affair and this allowed for small and intimate table arrangements for the guests. Flowers for each table were the centrepiece and arrangements of blue hydrangeas and baby hydrangeas were natural looking and bought colour to the table. Little glass jars filled with little flower buds completed the table flowers. I included the printables into our table setting in the form of placemats for everyone. I loved how these set off the blue china perfectly.
All in all, we had a beautiful day with our nearest and dearest. It was a day filled with laughter and love and joy at seeing our boy become a young man.
Please enjoy these images and a little glimpse into our special day!
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| My boy Liam. He was actually quite sick in the lead up to this day and was not at all himself. |
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| Sharing the day with so many wonderful people that we are privileged to share our life with. |
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| Gorgeous invitations by Pretty & Print |
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| Table settings. Lots of fresh flowers, coloured glass and printed placemats by Pretty & Print made the perfect table scape. |
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| Love my placemats! |
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| Stained glass dessert table. |
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| String art backdrop made by me. |
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| All desserts by me. Macarons by Its a Cake Thing by Jhoanee |
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| Coloured candies by Sweet Style. |
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| Even the inside of the cake was colour coordinated. |
I hope you enjoyed this little look into our special day.
Cake, sweets, tableware, styling and photography by Blissfully Sweet
Papery by Pretty & Print
Macarons by Its a Cake Thing by Jhoanee
Candy, Milk glass cake stand and white compotes by Sweet Style.
