Full disclosure, the Old Fashioned Croquet Party started with my desire to shoot a garden party in my parent’s garden. It’s incredibly beautiful and I knew that late June would be a wonderful time in terms of the garden being in full bloom. Next came assembling my friends. It’s important to have a game or activity to keep people happy when you’re going to be making them take photos and stand around, especially if lots of your guests a tiny humans. Croquet seemed perfect to me, and came with the added bonus of providing a natural menu theme and dress code. Croquet is traditionally played in all white, and there’s nothing like monochromatic coordination to make your friends and family look fancy and formal. It doesn’t hurt that all the white really stood out against the dramatic green of the lawn and surrounding garden. And since Croquet originated in France, a slightly French menu felt natural. Finally, it was time to style the table and the food. Fortunately, we were staying with my parents and they’re both natural collectors of beautiful things (have you wondered where I inherited a pathological send of needing many sets of wine glasses?), so I had lots to choose from in terms of antique pieces. Initially I thought about keeping the table all white as well, but as we sorted through my mother’s china and linens and thought more about French style, we started heading towards the Provençal blue and white palette, and added in a few more rustic items, such as wooden bowls. We added an assortment of blue and white plates, many patterns of silver, and a variety of mismatched cut crystal. An old ceramic water cooler was perfect for the lavender lemonade, and we piled the crystal onto an old silver plated tray and placed it next to crystal bowls and pitchers full of the lemons and lavender garnishes. Once we had our themes of blue and white china, old unpolished silver, and crystal, we just repeated that over and over adding in white flowers and hints of whimsy. A perfectly rusted plant stand became a plate and silverware stand and a green bunny planter full of flowers acted as greeter. Lots of cut peonies and lacy high bush cranberry flowers filled low crystal bowls and tarnished silver vases. My mother’s French Gendarme statue rounded out our French look.

This shoot was an excellent reminder to me of how picking an activity, like Croquet, can help a host or hostess simply and easily focus a menu and decor into a cohesive theme that brings the party together and acts as a natural formalizing element. I was so happy with how beautiful everything looked, and the whole menu and decoration side of things only took my mother and I about three hours to complete. Most of the day was reserved for enjoying the croquet tournament. And of course there was all of the lovely French(ish) food, especially the gorgeous local strawberries that my brother and his family provided.