A Romantic Valentines Day Dinner Setup

Happy belated Valentines Day, friends! I am especially excited about what I planned this year. Tom and I take turns planning our Valentines Day activities. The first year, I built a blanket fort and we watched a movie inside the fort. Last year, Tom sprinkled fake rose petals all over my apartment and took me to the Griffith Observatory to watch a show in the planetarium. This year it was my turn again, and since I love party style decor, I thought I would just go crazy at home! When planning out what I wanted to do, my initial thoughts were that I wanted it to look like Cupid overtook our apartment. What is the best way to do that? To incorporate as much pink and red as possible! I knew the easiest way to get the most bang for my buck was with balloons.

Originally, I had plans to do a balloon wall (which also would’ve been my first attempt at something like that) behind the bar cart, but time just wasn’t on my side. I knew I had time to make a balloon garland work, though, so I went for it! Instead of ordering a balloon arch kit like I’ve done in the past, I picked out 4 balloon shades (pink, another shade of pink, red and white) in the same sizes, some balloon tape, and some balloon glue. Additionally, I bought a couple 24″ balloons to add a little extra “umph”! After making balloon garlands for a year, I finally invested in this amazing, little, electric balloon pump! So worth it.

I’ll touch upon the bar cart details in a bit, but let’s get to the main focus: the dinner table. I personally am not a huge fan of my table. It has a cross shape on top made out of slate stones, and it can look a bit masculine. Not exactly friendly to a red and pink holiday, right? I knew I wanted to cover it up and lately I’ve been very into runners that puddle on the floor. I was originally going to go with a chiffon table runner, when I came across this cute one from Green Earth Studio on Etsy! To be honest, I had never even heard of cheesecloth. It’s a very cheap, easy to work with fabric! Overall a great purchase.

The plates were an Anthropologie set I bought about 4 years ago, and the wine glasses on the table (as well as the champagne glasses on the bar cart) were also bought from Anthropologie about 2 years ago. Unfortunately, no longer available, but there are so many cute Valentines Day plates from places like Meri Meri. If I didn’t have these plates already, I definitely would’ve went with something like that. I knew I wanted a garland on the table, so I used this one from Glitterville.

Just like the rest of the serving-ware, the cloth napkins were purchased from Anthropologie around the same time as the plate set. However, the disposable napkins I laid on top are from Michaels. Unfortunately, they’re no longer available, but these ones are pretty similar. The confetti all over the table was another great tool to spread around as much pink as I possibly could. If I had a lighter table, I may not have gone as crazy as I did, but I wanted everything to blend! This confetti from Studio Pep really went a long way. What you see here is only one tubes worth!

Now let’s get into the good stuff. The flowers. I completely fell in love with everything about Lauren Conrad’s Galentines Get Together, but especially the flowers. So much so, that I even reached out to the same company with a picture from that party and asked them to recreate it for me! That company is Earth Baby Flowers, and it was an amazing purchase. They asked me what my budget was, which I’m sure is well under what Lauren’s was, so if you do a side by side, you’ll see that mine is clearly smaller and less full. However, it was still so worth it. Honestly, it’s brightened my day walking out to them every morning! I set them on top of this cute, pink cake stand, which I think made all the difference. Adding height to this smaller centerpiece makes it stand out and get the attention it truly deserves!

In addition to the flowers, one of my favorite custom orders were these adorable (and super delicious) cookies from Hillary AKA Cookies Are Everything. Again, I was inspired by Lauren Conrad’s party. I will be completely honest with you – I loved the faces on her cookies so much (just like the faces on the cute Meri Meri plates!) and how sweet they looked, so I wanted to do the same. I made a couple changes, though. I thought it would be cute if there were heart “blush marks” on the faces, and that it was iced in white icing. My setup was more of a pink/red/white vibe, and not as much gold (aside from my bar cart), so i wanted to favor that a bit more. Additionally, I asked that she make half the cookies say “I love you” in script instead of having a face. Finally, I did a mix of both red and pink cookies! If you’re in the LA area and need some cookies, Hilary is your girl! Tom and I literally fought over the last cookie! 😉

Quick sidetrack to my bookshelf behind the dining table! I wanted everything to look cohesive, so of course I had to add a little something to it. I ordered this “Love” sign from The Trendy Timber and it was so perfect! I know I will reuse this sign for years to come, so it was a really great purchase. In the same vein, absolutely couldn’t be happier with this garland from PearlandJane! Another great piece that will last years and it really brought that WOW factor to my bookshelf!

Last, but certainly not least, the bar cart! Normally my bar cart isn’t styled very pretty and is completely filled with alcohol bottles. Side note, if you ever get a bar cart, be prepared for party guests to start leaving alcohol they bring behind. Your collection builds up real fast and real cheap! Anyway, for the top of the bar cart, I filled a glass jar with valentines M&Ms, bought this arrangement and this vase from Farm Girl Flowers, and wrote a cute saying on this pink letterboard which I am officially obsessed with. Additionally, I swapped out my gold and white striped straws for these pink and white striped ones. I may just end up leaving them year round! On the bottom level of the cart, I have my regular bar cart books with flowers on top. They are in a vase I already had, and ironically, it’s the same flower arrangement as what’s on top. Tom ordered me the same ones – whoops! He was upset, but I was just thrilled to have more of the same, haha! I put them in a smaller vase for some variety and put them on top of the bar cart books, diagonal from the placement of the other arrangement. As previously mentioned, the champagne glasses are no longer available at Anthropologie, and unfortunately, neither is the shaker as it is another Anthro oldie. Of course, I had to get champagne with a pink label to tie into the theme! The XO sign is from WillowKnots3 on Etsy. This helped fill up the space more and also helped draw in your eye. Finally, the heart garland is from Meri Meri.

And there you have it! Easy peasy when you have all the right decorations. It didn’t hurt either that I had the hundreds of fake rose petals that Tom used on me last year to save and sprinkle all over the floor this year! I would love to hear what you did on Valentines Day this year! Leave a comment below. 😉