Hello everyone! :) Do you remember last week’s blogpost about my tropical food table which I made for my blog’s party category?
I’ve already been planning such a food table several times in the past years and this time I thought it would be nice for you to get some insights into my planning process from idea to finished table. :)
How to plan a food table:
The first thing to do when thinking of making a new food table for me always is to write down some ideas and make notes. I think about a theme, the style of the table’s decor and a color scheme.
Next, I usually browse Pinterest, make a secret board (these are so extremely useful for planning and collecting visual inspiration) and collect recipes and decor ideas which inspire me and which fit the concept in my head. This is always so helpful when trying to decide on recipes or when trying to find additional decor ideas.
A good plan is everything:
When I have a rough idea of what the recipes will be about, I always make a first sketch to get a feeling of the food table’s style. Moreover, this helps me to keep an overview and to see if everything really fits together. When making this sketch, I always draw the food with the kitchenware we own, this makes planning easier and I can better see what else I will have to buy.
After having made a sketch, I love to color everything. Thus, one can perfectly get into the mood for the color scheme and already collect some decor ideas and tiny details.
As a next step, I write a shopping list (with having the recipes in mind) and make a tiny plan for what to do when. Thus, I don’t forget any detail and don’t become confused.
Decor preparation:
When the plan and timing are done, I usually make decor. For the tropical party, my decor concept was mainly based on colorful fruits and I love making buntings and cake toppers myself.
Afterwards I love to go shopping for missing supplies and put everything together according to my color scheme I had in mind from the beginning on.
Those tiny pineapple cake toppers and the fruit buntings are handmade. Eeeks, so pretty!
To take photos of supplies, our ladder is always very useful. :)
Behind the scenes:
For taking photos in my room, I always close the light white curtains and thus turn my room into a natural soft box. This time, I finally also installed curtains in our kitchen so that there are also good conditions for taking photos.
For later sharing the recipes on my blog, I always take many photos while I am preparing a food table. This takes A LOT of additional time during the preparations, but is an important part for me. I rather like to provide you with recipes which also include some step-by-step photos.
The finished food table:
So all in all, the whole process of making a food table usually takes me about 50 to 60 hours.
It takes about 15 hours of collecting ideas, making sketches, preparing decor and food shopping, then I need about 15 additional hours for preparing the food and drinks and for finalizing the setup. Additional 10 hours are needed for taking photos of the table, for sorting those photos and for editing them and then there are about 10 to 20 hours needed for writing the blogposts (depending on the amount of recipes, but usually there will be between 4 and 6 blogposts for one table).
As you can see, in the end there’s a total amount of about 50 to 60 working hours just for one food table, wowza! :) Nevertheless, I totally love this and always enjoy this whole process. It’s usually quite a lot of effort, but as you could see in this blogpost, it absolutely gets easier with detailed planning, good time management and a proper overview of to do’s and priorities.
Such a fun project!
Happy food table planning! :)
Lu
LOVE this! Espicially your pine apples and watermelons ^_^
Sweet! It looks delicious and I'd like to taste. YummiHave a nice day,Mabel
Sieht wirklich toll aus!! Wo gab es denn die süßen Flamingo Sachen? :-)Liebe Grüße, Victoria
Die sind von Tiger und IKEA. :)
Liebe Lu,der Post ist wirklich toll, danke! Ich plane gerade das Essen für meine 50er Jahre-Geburtstagsparty und allein das pinterest-Board zur Kleidungsinspiration für die Gäste hat 3 Stunden gebraucht.;) Aber für mich ist das Planen und die Vorfreude immer am schönsten – die Party oder das Essen an sich sind immer so schnell wieder vorbei.Liebe GrüßeJulia
Juhu, ganz viel Spaß dabei, klingt toll!!!
Oh DAS ist ja cool!! Wird kommenden Sommer, der schon heiß ersehnt wird, unbedingt auch mal veranstaltet :-)LG, Katja