Hosting others always has been and always will be one of the best way to serve and love on others. Today’s feature is telling the story of a hostess preparing for the party. Rachel is the vision and hands behind this special feature and is joining us on the blog today sharing tips on hosting and creating an atmosphere for a good party. We hope it inspires you to host a little gathering with your loved ones sometime soon. Read on and enjoy, we are excited to share with you. Rachel will take it from here.

We all love those perfect, blissful moments in the middle of summer. The sun is shining, your friends are gathered, and laughter is in the air. We let our hair down, wear the dress we’ve been wanting to break out and enjoy all the little details of life with the people we love. Recently at CHAR co, we have been talking about what it looks like to create a good atmosphere. How to love the people around us well. That easily transitioned into hosting for us! We want to be good hostesses in every way. We talked about how to enjoy throwing a good party and have our guests leave feeling full of life. Something that our team loves is details. So we prepared a sweet garden party full of lovely details : the little flowers on the place settings, creative cocktails and flowers everywhere!

Often times, the parties we throw reflect how we, as the host, are feeling. Make sure you’re not overwhelmed, that you can enjoy and talk with your guests and leave all the cleaning and running around for before and after your guests arrive. Be sure to take the time and talk to every guest; it is important to connect and engage with them. You want to make everyone feel welcome and at ease no matter what has happened throughout their day or week.   

For this garden party, we partnered with our wonderful friends at Hatchery to help take our food to the next level. We used Coconut Flower Nectar by Sweet Revenge Sugar co. in our vanilla & almond mascarpone strawberry tart. The coconut flower is a wonderful baking ingredient and can make any sweet treat a little more healthy! For garden parties, tea cakes are a must in our book.  Our blackberry buttercream tea cakes were brought to life with Hatchery’s Blackberry Extract. This fresh, fruity taste is perfect on a warm summer day! For something a little more savory, our tea sandwiches were made on fresh ciabatta and spread with The Truffliest Mustard, arugula, smoked salmon, capers, dill, a drizzle of sour cream and squeeze of lemon.  This mustard will take any savory sandwich to the next level. And finally our summer cocktails! Hibiscus Ginger syrup, plum, vodka, seltzer, ice, and mint. So refreshing.

And, of course, you cannot throw a top notch garden party without beautiful flowers! And for that we have our friends from Flourish Flowers to thank!  Not only did they provide us with incredible flowers for our table, but they also handcrafted a gorgeous garland down the middle of our table. Their flowers are fresh, lush, self nurtured and even more delightful, are the lovely owners.

Remember that once your guests arrive, they are the priority. If they show up before you’re ready, you don’t need to apologize, simply invite them into the preparing process and interact with them. At all points, laugh off anything that doesn’t live up to your exceptions, chances are that your guests won’t even notice! Don’t let anything steal your joy! The more fun you have, the more at ease your guests are. It’s true what they say, laughter is contagious! So let go of stress, be merry, and enjoy yourself and the loved ones around you!