The month of May brought the 6th Annual Dining Spaces Tabletop Design Competition and NJ North ISES to the Olde Mill Inn at Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The designers from A Touch of Elegance were just one design team competing and helping to raise money for the Search Foundation, a non-profit organization benefiting members of the special event industry dealing with catastrophic losses or illnesses.This year, our table was named "Daisy Masterpiece" and sought to elevate the common white daisy to a status worthy of a high-end modern wedding celebration. To emulate an organic country setting, our team constructed a refurbished-looking wooden Pergola, complete with dents, saw marks, and remnants of charcoal from fires long ago. A lawn of "grass" was placed under the pergola to lend a sense of an outdoor dinner party and green lighting illuminated our corner of the room to reinforce the grassy feel. Wood beams were softened with draped ivory Georgette fabric. Party Rental, Ltd. (http://www.partyrentalltd.com/) provided a gorgeous rustic wooden table and matching chairs, along with tableware for this design.
A palette of yellow, green, and white from the Daisy itself was used throughout the table design. Gold urns contained luxurious arrangements of yellow garden and spray roses, green viburnum and snow-on-the-mountain, and white daisies and hyacinths. The daisy was the real star of the night, however, as spheres hanging from chair backs, by adorning customized lampshades, and as a large framed abstract "daisy" made of, you guessed it, more real daisies! 
We were fortunate to win awards for People's Choice, Most Creative, and Connoisseur, and are very grateful to the Olde Mill Inn for hosting and NJ North ISES (http://www.isesnjnorth.org/) for creating this fantastic fundraiser.
Many thanks also to Walter Cmielewski, from Eloquent Studios (http://www.eloquentstudios.com/) for the stunning photos seen here! Cheers!
