Love is in the Air
Charleston Flagship Launch Party
At Juliska, we have a passionate love affair with a life filled to the brim with romance and adventure - epicurean and otherwise! So to celebrate the opening of our sparkling new flagship store in Charleston, it seemed perfectly fitting to host a formal picnic inside our workshop studio, replete with a dreamy tablescape recreating an actual European park brought to life.
Gathering an inspiring assemblage of local Charleston tastemakers, influencers, and cherished friends, we embraced the opportunity to illustrate our Juliska philosophy of curating your own unique style by having every single woman create her own place setting upon arrival, in our light-filled Table Setting Studio. With a beautiful signature cocktail in hand from our Bohemian Bar, guests could view all of our patterns on display, then pick their dinner plate, salad plate, and napkin, like assembling a bouquet of flowers. After selecting their gorgeous place setting, talented local artist and calligrapher, Markie Mossman, custom calligraphed a place card to match, on the spot!
Whenever we have a themed party, we don’t just set the table, we set the scene! My brilliant and talented mother, Vicky Cameron (who does all of the fabulous florals in our flagship store) was my collaborator in dreaming up the enchanting tablescape for this event. Wanting to bring to life the idea of a picnic, we decided to recreate an actual formal park as the centerpiece of our dining table. We spent days hunting down fresh sod, tiny white pea gravel, miniature park benches, and fresh flowers. And then we spent another day heaving it all up the stairs one flat at a time, and watering it all to keep it fresh and dewy!
As the sparkling conversations and cocktails continued, our Juliska team worked behind the scenes to magically set our dining table with all of the individually chosen place settings of our guests. Awash in a whimsical riot of colors and patterns, the tablescape was brought together with the unifying elements of our micro-floral Mirabelle tablecloth (which works harmoniously with absolutely everything) along with the simplicity of the green grass and the geometry of the park.
For a splash more of dramatic impact - and wanting to conjure up the festive vintage feel of an outdoor fête - we created garlands of flags using our pretty floral napkins, which we folded on the bias and simply draped over ropes that we purchased from a home improvement store. We hung this homemade and beautiful bunting in a radial pattern around the room overhead, along with dozens of our Jardin du Monde hot air balloons, which were floating and festooned with red, cream, and periwinkle blue flowers as an homage to our French, English, and American heritage that is so emblematic of our style. The overall effect was intimate, opulent, eclectic, and chic!
The delicious meal was created by The Drifter, a local husband and wife team from Charleston, with scrumptious strawberry cake for dessert that was decorated in our DeWulf family tradition with fresh flowers from the garden. Beneath the balloons and bunting, we toasted and dined the evening away with friends (new and old) gathered together around the picnic table - truly an affair to remember!
