Arabian Nights Dinner Party

It's been quite a while since I've thrown a dinner party. So, this year for my birthday I decided that throwing a dinner party was exactly what I wanted to do. I thought of a few different themes, but finally settled on an Arabian Nights theme -mostly because one of my friends thought that an Arabian Nights dinner party would be "a dream".

In order to do this on the cheap side, I borrowed a canopy tent from a friend who just happened to have one handy. Then I covered it in any fabric I could find (table clothes, bed sheets, comforters...) as long as it was gold, yellow or red. I had everyone sitting on the ground on cushions and I propped the table up on cinder blocks to give it a little bit of height.

I made some pretty cool looking Moroccan-style lanterns to hang inside the tent. I really liked the way these turned out and they were cheap to make and not very time consuming.

For the table setting, I had a brass tea set that I placed in the center of the table. I didn't use a lot of flowers for this table because I wanted the brass tea set to be the star of the table -and I didn't really feel like doing any fancy floral arrangements. 

We had some dahlias and marigolds growing in the garden so, I picked them and put the dahlias in a vase and scattered the marigolds around the table. 

I decided to have everyone eat with their hands for this meal. I thought it would be fun and add to the whole dining experience. So, I included finger bowls with water at each persons place setting. I put out lots and lots of candles and to complete the look I placed two candlestick holders with gold candlesticks at the ends of the table.

Now for the food...mmm...

 For the starters I made small plates of tabouli, samboosa, hummus, and baba ganoush and placed them around the table with some pita bread. For the main course I served kabsa. And for dessert, I made some baklava, which turned out amazing -totally worth making!

I had a lot of fun putting this party together. I always love seeing what the final product looks like. It is always so fun to throw a bit of an over-the-top dinner party. Give it a try, the planning is fun, the prep is fun and the dinner party itself is always fun and memorable. Phew -that's a lot of fun!