Since summer is upon us, using coral and starfish for a centerpiece seems appropriate and so pretty in a white, cream and metallic color palette. I love using natural objects like the coral vs. flowers sometimes because I can set the table in advance and not have to worry about the centerpiece wilting or dying too early before my guests arrive. This coral piece and starfish I had as accents around my home and I just moved them to the table for a quick and easy centerpiece. Calligraphed place cards and a menu card, always make a table setting elegant and inform your guests where to sit and what to expect. Coconut cupcakes that I bought from the local bakery and placed inside cupcake sleeves and topped off with metallic gold Celebration Candles keep things a little more informal and festive. (Hostess Note: you could begin with lit candles and each guest would just place the cupcake and candle to the side throughout the meal or you could light the candles just before dessert to be able to sing happy birthday or make a toast to a guest of honor which is what I personally did with this table setting) Celebration Candles from Creative Candles, Cupcake sleeves from Dress My Cupcake, Calligraphy by Gail Brill Design.  Cream linen tablecloth, white linen napkins, Jars plates, Alessi flatware, Gold Nason Moretti decanter, water and champagne glass tumblers, all available from my store The Product Gallery.

Stylist Note: If you want to add more light to your table you could also take any small bowls and add sand or sugar (like I did in the photograph below) to hold the Celebration Candles in place. If you’d rather not have cupcakes on your table, then at least you would still have the candlelight. The 6″ burn for about 45 minutes and the 15″ burn about 2 hours. Another simple solution is to add a few clear glass votives with white or cream votive candles dotted throughout the table setting or Creative Candles also offers the gold metallic candles in a classic 12″ taper if you’d prefer to use candlesticks.