“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are grey.
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.
Please don’t take my sunshine away.”
This sweet, old song from the 1940s reminds Miss Party of her mother’s lap and a certain rocking chair. It is also a wonderful theme for milestone celebrations in which the guest(s) of honor is cherished by the host and/or hostess, such as a birthday for a young child, wedding or baby shower, rehearsal dinner, or wedding reception or even a lovely 50th anniversary celebration. It really is a wonderful crossover theme that can be applied to a celebration for anyone we love.
The theme’s color scheme is a deeply saturated sunshine yellow and bright white; together, they are happy, fresh, and young-at-heart. Miss Party’s ever-practical mind because of the graphic color combination of yellow and white. A modern, artistic take on the theme would be energetic, bold, youthful. Yellow is the star of this show, with lesser amounts of white. Let white be the accent or background ‘color’. To break up the intensity of the yellow, look for a graphic yellow and white patterned fabric for runners or toppers for your tables, or napkins. Also, check scrapbooking aisles for contemporary yellow and white patterned papers to use in all kinds of ways on your food tables and include in your invitation design.
The other styling elements to a contemporary party that are the most important are: clean lines, simplicity, symmetry and repetition. A platter of desserts, for example, should be all of one type of dessert, spaced consistently in neat, precise rows and on a platter that is the same color as all others on the table, most often, white. So collect, borrow or buy all the white bowls and platters you can find. Sun-shaped decor should be modern and interpretive (lots of multi-sized, yellow paper globes would look fab). This style of party is mostly about a single color, in this case – yellow, and shape – circles and spheres.
Get creative for ways to display the theme phrase. You might print the phrase in a clean, modern font, but frame in an ornately carved white 5×7 frame to place on the welcome table, or make a banner garland printed with the phrase to hang behind the dessert table. Of course food, dessert, and beverage choices should have yellow and white incorporated wherever possible to add to the color scheme. Miss Party can taste the bubbly Limonata or Limonata Punch now!
You might consider dove grey as an excellent accent color choice if this celebration is for a wedding reception and you want to add a touch of masculinity to the color palette. It would tie in nicely with the reference to ‘skies of grey’. Miss Party imagines the wedding party: the bridesmaids in sunshine yellow knee-length dresses, the maid of honor a sorbet yellow dress, the bride in a white-white wedding dress, groom in a black tuxedo, best man in a charcoal gray suit, and the groomsmen in medium grey suits. Gorgeous! Miss Party Smarty is getting happy just imagining how beautiful this would look! Do the yellow, grey, white combination in deep shades of intense sun yellow, charcoal grey and white at the rehearsal dinner, but pastel versions of lemony sorbet yellow, dove grey and white for the wedding reception the following day, and all of the shades of yellow, grey and white would be reflected in the wedding party. Amazing!!!
Miss Party would love to add your ideas to this theme. If you do choose to do this theme for your own party, please share a post of pictures and details!
