Because I wanted to host a little dinner for my single friends…
It was honestly so fun hosting four of my single friends this Valentine’s Day. I don’t have dinner parties often, but I put a lot of time and effort into curating a really fun night for us – here are all the details 🙂
Table setting
These heart taper candlesticks are SO cute – they’re sadly sold out now, but here’s a similar version.
The candlestick holders are vintage, but you can search “vintage crystal candlestick holders” on eBay and you’ll get tons of results.
My plates and napkins are old, but:
- gold flatware set
- wine glasses
- heart name card, designed be me. I used these wooden hearts, red paint, and acrylic paint pen.
Food & Drinks
These rose ice balls were made from my Pinterest dreams! LOL. I bought red roses at the grocery store, and then used this whiskey ice ball mold to make them. So fun, right?!
Caprese heart skewers! The trick here is to buy grape tomatoes (cutting them into a heart won’t work with any other shape!)
I wanted a simple salad that wouldn’t play against the other (all Italian) dishes I was making. For this salad, I just did arugula, pomegranate seeds (for a pop of red), apples (cut into hearts using this cookie cutter), and chopped walnuts. Dressing was just olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Simple and so good!
Baked shrimp scampi. This app was my favorite! It was my first time making it, and it was SOOO easy and delicious.
Recipe is here, and I even found the baking shells!
Mini heart pizza! This was so easy and everyone loved the little heart shape. I used Whole Foods’ pizza crust, tomato sauce, shredded mozzarella, and some red pepper flakes. I also used a heart-shaped cookie cutter, but kitchen shears would also work to make the heart shape.
Pasta! Lastly, I made a super easy, fun-shaped pasta. The original plan was to use Trader Joe’s heart-shaped pasta, but your girl waited too long and it was sold out by the time I went shopping, lol.
Cake. For dessert (and this is my secret hack, btw), I ordered a custom cake from Ralph’s grocery ($19.99!). I asked for “a plain white, chocolate cake. No decorations.” Then I bought a dozen red roses and used three of them to adorn the top. Simple, and so pretty. Hot tip: make sure you also grab some floral tape if you plan on inserting roses into a cake; I just used saran wrap and it ended up getting stuck inside the cake when I took out the flowers.
My cake stand is vintage, but I found a few more here, here, and here.
Craft
Charm bracelets! I wanted us to do a fun craft after dinner, and decided on charm bracelets since charm necklaces/bracelets have been making a major comeback. I was honestly SHOCKED to find this charm bracelet kit on Amazon for only $31! It gives you 200 gold charms, 100 silver charms, gold and silver jump rings, and several silver bracelets. Such a steal and everyone was thrilled with the charm selection.
SHOP
