Rehearsal Dinner- Italian Style

My friend, Christy, is hosting a rehearsal dinner in September.  It is out of town, so the challenge is to create  simple, easy to transport, décor for the event!  She is having the dinner at an Italian restaurant and the menu sounds divine!  In addition to having the dinner at an Italian restaurant, Christy is Italian!  So a theme was born! Yesterday, we spent the day creating the invitations, menu and centerpieces.

First we designed the invitation.  Christy chose the words for the invitation and we typed  them on a red background.  We then had them printed on a 4 by 6 photo paper in lustre finish.
13 cents a copy- not bad!

We stamped and embossed the black envelopes with an Italian postmark in gold.

 

Finally, the invitation was glued on to a gold border with a black background! 

Now they are ready to address with a gold pen and go in the mail.

 

 

Next for the menu card.



Using the Italian flag as inspiration, we used each color stripe  to list  a different course.

And to keep the same feeling as the invitation, we again backed it with gold and black cardstock.

 

 

Placed on  a white starched napkin, it will look crisp and festive.

Next for the centerpieces. 

They had to be easily transported and quick to assemble on the night of the party.    So in keeping with our Italian theme, we decided to use wine bottles and create our own special label for the bride and groom.



 

I found hand dyed red and tan silk ribbon in my ribbon stash, along with a spool of gold vintage French thread. And I spotted a package of sealing wax with a crown stamp!

 

What to do with these we asked ourselves???

 



 

We created a wine label out of a copy of an old map of Italy and edged the borders in 18 kt. gold.

They were applied with a glue stick to the front and back of the bottle, so the bottle would look good from both sides.

Next the sealing wax was used to create little crown seals for the bottles.

 

 

 



 

 

The ribbons were tied on the neck of the bottle and the crown seal was applied with glue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now- what flower is readily available in most parts of the country?  A red rose!

We knew that with a Costco nearby , that we could easily find lots of long stem red roses.

And a red rose was the perfect color for our Italian theme.

Imagine lots of these bottles down the center of a long table with votives placed in between.

It's a simple set up- water in the bottles, roses in the bottles,  then placed on the tables with votives.

Place the menu card on the white napkin and voila!  It's a set up that her friends can easily quickly do, while  she is at the wedding rehearsal!

 

 

 

 

Now- we only need to drink 18 more bottles of wine to get enough empty bottles to finish the project!

Now that's not a problem!!!