Chas and I hosted our very first dinner party at our place last week: Friendsgiving! It was the most fun. We asked each couple to bring their favorite Thanksgiving dish and we had all the goods from stuffing to green bean casserole to apple pie! Charles in charge did a fabulous job with the turkey (his first one ever, I was so proud) and we were all lying on the floor with food comas by the end of the night.

I wanted to share some inspiration for your Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving tablescape. And if you need last minute ideas, I literally threw this together three days before the party thanks to Amazon, where I purchased most of the decorations.

Let’s get to the table, shall we? I registered for these wooden servers when we got engaged and love the effortless statement they make as a charger or place mat. I love these Juliska dinner plates, the Madeleine plate to be more specific (of course I had to register for those, too!) I added my MacKenzie-Childs salad plates and these darling white pumpkins were the cherry on top. And don’t be too impressed with the napkins… we may have over estimated how many we needed for the wedding and had hundreds left over which we are still using today, so I just wrote the girls names in sharpie on the back!

As for the centerpiece, I knew I wanted something simple and neutral while still feeling festive for our Friendsgiving. I found these faux eucalyptus branches that honestly look so real! I used them as the base and then added some cotton (bringing some of our ) that I cut from these stems for more texture to the table. A dinner party isn’t complete without candles so I found these wooden candlesticks and tapered candles to help set the mood. Sprinkle in a couple more white pumpkins and viola!

I decided to have a little dinner table activity for our friends and used some cute blank cards I found at the dollar section of Target. I wrote “I’m thankful that: God ____, My Spouse ____, and Other ____” on each card for everyone to write down their answers on. During dessert we went around the table sharing what we wrote. It was sweet remembering the Lord’s faithfulness, affirming our husbands/wives and realizing that most of our “Other” was for the community of friends we had all found in each other. The Lord sure has been sweet for blessing us with these friends so early on in our Chicago journey. Aren’t they just the cutest?

bloom & grow forever,

Madeline Rose