I experienced my first “all white dinner” in San Francisco. I recall being in Paris a few years back and seeing streams of people in white carrying white tables, white folding chairs, and white picnic baskets all to a location no one knew. It was so mysterious! I asked someone politely in my rusty French, “Où allez-vous?” And a woman in white kindly replied, “Au dîner en Blanc!” I was eager to do some research!
The all white dinner occurs just once a year, in the summer. Thousands of people around the world, on a date determined by each city, dress in white. They meet at a beautiful public location to share a gourmet dinner with friends. And some even wear white wigs! The event usually starts at 5:00 p.m. local time and could end anywhere from 10 p.m. to midnight. After it's over, all the guests in white pick up their belongings and head out of sight. Their destination is a beautiful majestic setting with white tables and guests dressed in white all around them eating and drinking a fabulous gourmet dinner. The secret part of this entire dinner invitation is that no one knows where the location will be until a few hours before the event. It was extraordinary to see the streets of San Francisco filled with people dressed in white walking and carrying all their table settings, food and décor to a special occasion.
If you’d like to have your own Dîner en Blanc, here are my top 20 tips on how to make it a spectacular splash:
- Tables covered with large white tablecloths, white linen napkins, white sparkly napkin holders, white place cards
- Party giveaways in white 3-tiered boxes to be placed at each place setting each tied in beautiful ribbon – in each box put something for your guests to nibble on later
- Folding chairs and white seat covers
- White balloons tied to each chair
- Crystal champagne flutes, Veuve champagne, silver vintage champagne buckets and ice
- Wine glasses, white wine, wine opener
- Rimless glasses for water
- Silverware: two forks per guest, cheese spreaders, knives and spoons
- White flowers and all shapes and sizes of white or crystal vases
- Battery operated white candles in all shapes and sizes and bird cages with white battery operated votives
- A white cake (home baked or store bought) on a cake pedestal with cake server
- White china plates
- Hot coffee in a thermal container with white mugs, condiments, Baileys or Kahlua – you can bring another thermal container for hot water (don’t forget tea bags)
- Plenty of water bottles – you could even have some custom labels made
- Boxed dinners from a vendor or from a caterer. Place on each place setting.
- A cheese and charcuterie board including dried fruit, grapes, nuts, cornichons pickles and olives
- Sparklers
- A white dress, white denim, white furs – whatever you choose to wear, just make sure it’s all white and have fun with it
- Collapsible wagons to cart all of this fabulous stuff into your venue
- Plenty of trash bags for post party clean up
As your life stylist, I can put ALL of this together for you as well as create
invitations for your event. Just Ask!
P.S. If you missed my recent Robin Laub Live segment on Facebook regarding how to package a bottle of champagne (which would look amazing on a table at dîner en blanc!), here it is again:
https://www.facebook.com/707112143/videos/10154754565622144
