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After the holidays, even a hostess with the mostest can feel a bit fatigued. Come January 1, we are over overkill: No more bubbly, no more tinsel, and please, no more fruit cake. When it comes to entertaining, we’re ready for something lighter, brighter and easier to digest. Take Jane Sahagian’s lead. As the owner of Rikka Floral & Events in Park City, it’s her business to create showroom parties that provide the comfort and coziness of in-home entertaining. She suggests the following easy-does-it ideas for an intimate dinner party.
The Setting
When planning the décor for a small dinner or large event, Sahagian looks to contemporary Asian design for inspiration, often utilizing feng shui in her practices. “I like clean lines and simplicity—a quiet elegance,” she explains. For an at-home dinner party, she recommends a long banquet table, streamlined chairs and clean white linens. And while she favors a contemporary look, she also craves comfort. To create a cozy, intimate setting, she dims the lights, lights candles, turns on soft, ambient music and pulls plush armchairs up to the table in place of stiff dining seats.
The Table
For a toned-down, elegant setting, Sahagian sets tables with white linens and square white dishes. She selects unique flatware such as a favored set by Dansk that includes European forks and knives that rest upright so the blade stands up and stays clean. “This creates a dressier table and is easy to do,” she says. Rather than elaborately folded napkins, she drapes a napkin on the back of each guest’s chair; when a guest gets up from the table she replaces the crumpled napkin with a fresh one placed over the chair. To enliven place settings, she puts a stone or decorative object on the center of each plate, sometimes using them as place-card holders. “If you have nice collectibles or artifacts from travels, put them to use as placecard holders, as accents in your centerpiece or to enhance the presentation of a buffet,” she says.
The Centerpiece
“A centerpiece is the crowning jewel of the table setting,” Sahagian says. “It’s important to focus your efforts on this aspect.” Instead of traditional floral vases, she utilizes uniquely shaped objects to contain blooms. For this table, she chose a 3-foot-long, 2-foot-wide patinaed copper tray. “Always create a centerpiece that mirrors the shape and style of your table and setting,” she advises. She filled the tray with water, oversized white Oriental lilies, bear grass and marbled rocks. “The design is very simple—I just use one or two stems of lilies,” she explains. “And the bear grass is flexible and easy to work with.” To create movement and an element of surprise, she added a few goldfish to the water, as well as candles in floating jade votives, and a few small bronze frog figurines designed by artist Tim Cottrell. The low, simple centerpiece is statement-making but nonintrusive, allowing guests to converse without a tall arrangement blocking their view of one another.
The Menu
Keeping with the theme of Asian simplicity, Park City celebrity Chef Jeff Toney, a colleague of Sahagian’s, suggests a palate-pleasing, easy-to-prepare dish like surf and turf. To make the classic dish look fresh and new, Toney decorated a section of the plate with steak sauce and topped the design with filet mignon. Next to the filet, he arranged the cooked lobster meat and placed the empty lobster tail upright next to the meat for added flair. A light Asian salad of bok choy, cucumber and melon balls, cherry tomatoes and pearl onions adds color and rounds out the plate design.
Petal Pointers — Jane Sahagian’s top tips for flowers that wow
›› Keep it Simple. When arranging flowers, use a single type or hue of bloom, or select just a few stand-out stems. “I find the most simple arrangements are the most striking,” says Sahagian. “One flower can be so graceful.”
›› Think Outside the Vase. Arrange flowers in interesting containers, bottles or trays. “My inspiration begins with a unique vase, and then I design the floral arrangement to coordinate.”
›› Set the Mood. Design your arrangements so their color, texture and style match the look and feel of your dining area. “Your floral arrangement should complement the surrounding artwork, furnishings and table settings.”
›› Go Beyond Blooms. Sahagian suggests using vegetables, fruits and unusual artifacts to add intrigue to floral arrangements.
›› Design with White. In the winter, Sahagian loves using white blooms. She recommends lilies, amaryllis and white anthurium, which she says last a long time.
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