As you all know, some of my favorite nights are when Ryan and I have friends over for good food and wine. So that is what we decided to do for our birthdays this year, but we decided to take it up a notch… Since we have quite a few close friends who have birthdays in January and early February, why not have them all over for a custom 7-course dinner party in our backyard? I was able to mix my two favorite things together, designing and hosting.

For those of you who are intrigued by zodiac signs, yes I’m talking about those of you who read co-star every day like my group of friends, then you may have guessed that I am a Capricorn. Since Capricorn is an earth sign, I embraced earth tones and natural materials as the core inspiration for this dinner party design.

Design by Ann Cox Design, Photo by Ashlee Hamon Photography

I layered a combination of neutral, earth toned, cheesecloth table runners then placed seeded eucalyptus on top, contrasting the golden and green tones. The rest of the table décor mix and matched various natural materials, wood, stone, iron, florals, and glass. We partnered with Kate Ryan Event Rentals for the black plates, gold silverware, and amber colored drinking goblets. The final touch was a mini succulent in a tiny terracotta dish with the guest’s name printed in copper that we had at each seat. My good friend Ashlee was there as a guest, but of course came early to get all of these beautiful photos.

Earthy tones for our Earth sign dinner party. Design by Ann Cox Design, Photo by Ashlee Hamon Photography

We partnered with Gather Tampa to help curate a 7-course meal that accommodated all of our favorite dishes, flavors, and dietary needs. Our friend, Danny Guess, built a wine pairing based off of Gather’s menu to complete the dining experience. We had everything from acorn squash, to scallop ceviche, and then ended with two desserts (mainly because the birthday crew had too many favorites and we couldn’t choose just one). The meal was incredible, every single guest walked out blown away by the experience. I cannot give enough praise to Gather, the presentation was beautiful, the meal was well paced, and the team was incredible. Please excuse the iPhone photos below but this meal was too good not to share.

We suck and this is the only group photo we have of the evening

After dinner, we transitioned to the second phase of our dinner party, the karaoke portion. Our group invested in a karaoke machine a few months back and it was definitely worth the investment. To all of our neighbors (because it is obviously portable and we take it to everyone’s houses), we formally apologize for how much we use this karaoke machine. Since this was a more formal affair, we decided to elevate the experience by playing music videos on our inflatable screen. Which means we needed a cozy karaoke lounge area. So of course, I used inventory from my other company, Home Staging Gals, to stage the perfect lounge area that complimented the earth sign decor from our tablescape.

We designed a modern boho space that continued the color palette of greens, yellows, and neutrals but mixing more materials and textures. We still had had stone and metal but added in bamboo, rattan and more natural materials to make my earth sign heart happy. It was the perfect place to gather pre and post dinner.

Sorry, no personal photos or videos of the actual karaoke night will be published, out of respect for the artists. But Mae wanted to let you all know, she was the real star of the night….