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The Austin Area Alumnae Association of Kappa Kappa Gamma hosted this year’s 11^th annual tabletop extravaganza, now called Austin Settings at the beautiful Palmer Event Center.  Forty-Four of Austin’s premier special event planners, florists, designers and assorted party gurus participated to help raise more than $200,000 for local area non-profits.   Allison’s Events was one of the fourty-four local  Austin designers that participated.  Each participant takes one table to design in a good natured competition.  Although there is no official winner, the finest designs have the opportunity to be featured in a local design Magazine.

  The two day event, which included a “Marimba & Mojitos Preview Party”, a silent auction and a luncheon where guests pay to sit at the designer tables, each one as varied as the design personalities that created them.   Our participation in this event was a charitable contribution which landed the photographs of our design on the pages of Austin Monthly Home Magazine.  We also had the honor of being nominated for the 2007 Texas Star Award in tabletop design for this creative display.

Each designer participating in this event is asked to choose a design concept and create a table that will be sold with all proceeds donated to charity.   Each designer may also include items from the tabletop to be auctioned off after the luncheon.  Since the event was scheduled to take place as winter turned into spring, we choose to build our designer table around the theme “The Winter Garden”.

The Winter Garden theme  further evolved from our love of the beauty of stark, bare tree branches as seen in the silvery light of winter.  Our centerpiece idea was simply large bare tree branches hung with individual silver and opal leaves.  From this point we developed the idea of using the silver light of winter in all of our choices for the table along with early spring touches of lavenders, lilac and plum and the colors of a winter sunset.

We searched and shopped for four months to gather together all the items used to create the Winter Garden theme table design. We choose linens in a Bengaline Winterberry topped with silver Marquis Damask then topped again with Lilac Satin then gathered at each place setting with bejeweled butterfly and dragonfly clips to show off the layers of fabric hiding underneath.  Every other Silver Chivari Chair was dressed with either a white faux fur chair cap or a white sheer beaded chair cap to add contrast and interest.  We incorporated jeweled Butterflies, frogs and turtles in the centerpieces, scattered about the table and as napkin rings to hold the silver Marquis Damask Dinner napkins.  The Mikasa china was winter white with a touch of silver set on mosaic mirrored rounds used as chargers.  The place settings were complimented with elegant Mikasa Silver rimed glassware and flanked by Waterford Flatware.  The silver touches were reflected by the mirror chargers to help carry out the theme of a winter garden.  As participants in this event we were asked to provide a gift that each guest could take home with then after the event.  We choose to carry out the Winter garden theme in the design of our gift.  On each plum colored Satin chair cushion we placed a 5 inch silver watering can filled with Chocolate truffles, jeweled pens, flower seed packets and bejeweled butterfly or dragonfly hair clips.  The towering centerpiece of bare tree branches was the icing on the top.  Individual silver and opal leaves were attached on tiny wires that moved in the air.  Surrounding the centerpiece were garden urns filled with plum colored Tulips and Lilies.  The specialty spot lighting hung over the table reflected the colors and textures in the mirrors and created a garden atmosphere around the table.