A Night in Italy

If you didn't know, I am the 2nd counselor in our Young Women's program at church. Every year we put on a dinner and auction to raise money for them to go to Girls Camp.  This year we did "A Night in Italy" as our theme. All of the girls made either spaghetti, lasagna, or fettuccine to bring. And we provided an awesome salad and toasted garlic bread. The cost was $5 per person or $30 per family.

Members of the ward brought baked goods for us to auction off live, and we also had a silent auction going in the back with services the YW were auctioning off (babysitting, dog walking, window washing, etc.).

Between the dinner, live and silent auctions, we made just under $2700.  Covering the cost for all of our young women, including an awesome non-member, to go.

I was put in charge of the decorations, and thought they turned out cute.  I mean, there is only so much you can do with a gym, and a limited budget.

I found this awesome website and printed 99 cent 8x10's (thanks to a promotion Walgreen's was running) to hang along he back wall, like an art gallery. I glued them on cardstock and then on 1/2 sheets of poster board to make them bigger. 

I found chef hats for a good price on amazon, and had them shipped and on my porch in 2 days.  I love amazon.  The girls were awesome to comply with my request that they wear them :)

Our menu.  When I think of an Italian restaurant, especially in movies, I always picture it with a chalkboard menu. (Thank you Megan!)

I saw an idea on pinterest (of course) to chain together tissue poms to hang along walls at different lengths. Although probably just as cheap as balloons, you couldn't pay me enough money to make 114 of them (the number of balloons we blew up...thank you Justin for your air compressor).  I ended up really liking the balloons though. They reminded me of grapes, which makes me think of Italy as well.

But we did make 6 large poms to hang on either side of the stage.


My favorite, the centerpieces. Vases from the dollar tree, carnations from Flower Works, Italian parsley and a lemon slice.  I bought red damask fabric from Joann's to make squares for each table, and printed more Italian photos in wallet size to scatter around.


To complete the "mood", I downloaded an album of Il Divo (Pop/Opera) to play while everyone ate.  

Some of our girls performed a Samoan dance as entertainment for our guests. And we ran a slide show of pictures from our different activities.


I think people enjoyed themselves :)

I am so glad it is over though!