Once Upon a Time: How Catering Works Told the Story of Eight Princesses
Posted to: General News by Lorin Laxton on Apr 25, 2012 Some of you may have seen our Facebook album featuring photos from our entry in the March tabletop competition at this year’s Las Vegas Event Solutions & CaterSource Convention. But what you may not know is how we compiled the entire display and featured eight place settings for different princesses! We thought it would be fun to show you what’s behind our fairytale-inspired layout. Catering Works VP Lorin Laxton and Design Consultant E.W. Fulcher collaborated on the idea (read full bios here). Laxton says of the approach: “We tried to avoid any resemblance of Disney and marry the literal interpretations of the story, with the whimsical fantasy elements in the overall design”.
Today, we’ll show you how we created the overall look. Then each week, look for a different princess’ story, with details on how we created her place setting!
Setting the Table
The tablecloth was made of raspberry party bash linen from CE Rental.
Each princesses’ story excerpt was printed onto muslin and matted to a purple sparkle board.
We then included a favor representing her story. All the favors were painted in a metallic pewter. In this picture, Odette’s place setting includes a swan with flowers. In the upcoming princess profiles, we’ll tell you which favor she had, and the inspiration behind it.
All utensils featured a decorative fern pattern.
CE Rental also provided the beautiful fuschia napkins. These were folded into a fleur de lis pattern and set in stemless glasses.
The beautiful centerpiece you see here is a vintage bodice we transformed with flowers, nicely flowing into the tabletop linen. We added motorized mice figures in the background, who appeared to be sewing the dress for Cinderella! This piece is from A&B Fixtures.
To complement it, we created a giant pincushion with purple taffeta fabric, and used knitting needles and pearl beads to create the oversized pins. We then enhanced our centerpiece by placing four different spools of thread at its top.
Floral Beauties
Catering Works Design Consultant E.W. Fulcher was responsible for the floral creations. These consisted mainly of carnations, amaranth, tulips, and bells of Ireland. We sourced the flowers while in Vegas, from nationwide wholesale florist Mayesh.
Final Touches
CE Rental helped us design a custom linen for our floor cloth. We used a purple taffeta base cloth in addition to our custom Big Bash Raspberry tablecloth fabric. The design was a donut shape, with a hole in the middle for the centerpiece. It included eight points resembling dress peplums, draped over each princess’ chair and ending in a bow. The overall ‘dress’ look of the entry needed “to resemble a ball gown fit for a princess”, says Laxton.
Finally, this sparkly purple layer included the text “And they lived Happily Ever After” in elegant Gothic font.
Other Thanks
Thanks to Classic Party Rentals for all of our other pieces, including chameleon chairs (from the El Segundo branch), black onyx glasses, glass-beaded charger plates, and stemless goblets.
Today, we’ll show you how we created the overall look. Then each week, look for a different princess’ story, with details on how we created her place setting!
Setting the Table
The tablecloth was made of raspberry party bash linen from CE Rental.
Each princesses’ story excerpt was printed onto muslin and matted to a purple sparkle board.
We then included a favor representing her story. All the favors were painted in a metallic pewter. In this picture, Odette’s place setting includes a swan with flowers. In the upcoming princess profiles, we’ll tell you which favor she had, and the inspiration behind it.
All utensils featured a decorative fern pattern.
CE Rental also provided the beautiful fuschia napkins. These were folded into a fleur de lis pattern and set in stemless glasses.
The beautiful centerpiece you see here is a vintage bodice we transformed with flowers, nicely flowing into the tabletop linen. We added motorized mice figures in the background, who appeared to be sewing the dress for Cinderella! This piece is from A&B Fixtures.
To complement it, we created a giant pincushion with purple taffeta fabric, and used knitting needles and pearl beads to create the oversized pins. We then enhanced our centerpiece by placing four different spools of thread at its top.
Floral Beauties
Catering Works Design Consultant E.W. Fulcher was responsible for the floral creations. These consisted mainly of carnations, amaranth, tulips, and bells of Ireland. We sourced the flowers while in Vegas, from nationwide wholesale florist Mayesh.
Final Touches
CE Rental helped us design a custom linen for our floor cloth. We used a purple taffeta base cloth in addition to our custom Big Bash Raspberry tablecloth fabric. The design was a donut shape, with a hole in the middle for the centerpiece. It included eight points resembling dress peplums, draped over each princess’ chair and ending in a bow. The overall ‘dress’ look of the entry needed “to resemble a ball gown fit for a princess”, says Laxton.
Finally, this sparkly purple layer included the text “And they lived Happily Ever After” in elegant Gothic font.
Other Thanks
Thanks to Classic Party Rentals for all of our other pieces, including chameleon chairs (from the El Segundo branch), black onyx glasses, glass-beaded charger plates, and stemless goblets.