When Joe first told me this year would be his 20 year High School Reunion, my first thought was, “Okay? Old man.” But before I could even get that thought fully processed, he followed it up with it would be hosted at our house…. By me. 

And before you think, “OMG, Tara. How will all those people fit in your backyard?” — His graduating class was only 21 people. Which also meant, the majority were friends still in his life, so I was fully ready to fight whoever was the class president and supposed to be in charge of this, but, of course — it was Joe. Newsflash. I fought Joe.

All jokes aside, I do actually love planning, so I was excited to have full reign on another event. That is, until I found out the school colors were black and red. That’s fine, maybe I can use the mascot for inspo. A hawk. His mascot was a hawk. Okay, new direction.

After scouring Pinterest for hours, through all the very romantic black with red roses parties, I finally found a tiny bit of inspiration in using lots of red summer florals and natural wicker and rattan elements.

Now, I’ve never worked with flowers on such a large scale before, so I’m not sure why I thought to try it out on one of the hottest days in California, but I shall push forward nonetheless.

I planned to keep the table settings simple, since we weren’t having any sort of formal sit down meal, and I figured most people would be standing mingling. Black tablecloths, red runners, and a few small flower arrangements — which ended up being my first mistake of the night.

For the larger arrangements, I used my favorite clear fluted vase, but for the smaller ones, I got some small black pots that were also pretty cheap, but like I said… they were pots. Which meant as soon as I filled with water, all the excess drained out the sides.

So, although they worked, I was continuously adding small amounts of water the night before and whole morning leading up to the party.

I always love having some sort of hanging element, and after I allegedly compromised our string lights with disco balls, and they crashed to the ground, that’s apparently not an option. After lots of searching, I found these versatile gold arches. Although they’re not as high as a typical chandelier stand, they are significantly cheaper in cost and can be used for more than hanging a pendant, like for flowers or balloon arches.

Since I wasn’t planning on plugging in the hanging chandelier, I knew I could be a little creative when it came to what I used for the pendant. Actual pendants were pretty pricey, so I ended up using a scalloped wicker basket that I turned upside down and attached with hooks. It was perfect! Tip: If you wanted to add actual light, you could attach a battery powered puck light on the inside. In addition to the real flowers I’d be adding, I wanted some trailing down the sides, so opted for a faux vine to use.

Now this is where my second mistake happened. To attach the flowers to the pendant and also the welcome sign out front, I got a bunch of floral foam from Dollar Tree that I clipped and zip tied on. Well, like an idiot, I didn’t realize there was a difference between flower foam and synthetic flower foam. The biggest difference being that on one of the hottest days of the summer, my flower foam wasn’t going to absorb and hold any water for my flowers that so desperately needed it. *Cue to me 30 minutes before the party barely pulling the flower stems out of water to assemble.*

For the flowers, I was able to do a preorder through Trader Joe’s, although I found out they stopped doing any flower holds the week before I went in to ask for one. What are the odds. The employee must’ve seen the panic in my face when I told him how I just called a few weeks prior to check and was told yes, so he nicely said he’d still do it for me. For future, I’ve been told Costco will also do flower orders, so I’ll give that a shot.

I had also gotten a bunch of stems from a local farm, but, honestly, they were pretty rough looking to start, and by morning, a lot had started to wilt pretty badly despite being in water.

Of course, I couldn’t have a party without my staple backdrop set up, this time including some drapery on the sides between the sets of balloons. Third mistake was after staring at the backdrop for the two weeks prior, I woke up the morning of and finally saw I spelled the school name wrong.

Using the LumaBooth app, we turned our iPad and tripod into a simple photobooth set up. The app does have a monthly subscription, but you’re able to take multiple pics, GIFs, or boomerangs with slow mo video.

I wanted to add some custom elements throughout the party too, so using my Cricut, I cut out a giant vinyl sticker of the school mascot for the cornhole boards, ordered some 2005 newspapers off Etsy, and made everyone a name tag that had their senior picture on it.

Originally, I wanted to just have the party completely catered because the food aspect is just not my thing, but, eventually, we settled on keeping it super simple with pizza from The Goat and Vine in Old Town Temecula. If you’ve never been, they have incredible pizza with super unique topping combos.

Using some linen fabric and HTV vinyl, I created a custom pizza menu to drape across the buffet. This is such an easy addition to any food or bar space that won’t take away from any valuable table top you might need.

In the end, everything came out better than I imagined, and it was such a fun night getting to meet my husband’s friends and hear all their old stories as they reminisced together. But see you guys at someone else’s house in the next 25.

Want me to coordinate a party for you? Inquire here.