The summer entertaining season is winding down, but that doesn’t mean you can’t squeeze a few more fetes onto your social calendar. I’m the first to make an excuse to get girlfriends together for much needed mama time. You know it’s going to get sparse as we get deep into fall. So I recently gathered some of my blogger besties for a little rosé tasting party! It combined all of my loves – designing a gorgeous table, trading blogger (and mama!) tips and sipping on lots of yummy wine of course.

rosé tasting party on apartment 34

To set a stunning scene, I turned to Shutterfly. Long known as the go-to site for personalized cards and photos, did you know you can also flex your creative muscle personalizing your home decor too? I had a ball creating a lovely tabletop for my wine tasting soirée.

I started with all the glassware. I decided to create wine glasses marked with ROSÉ. Too cute right? I also thought personalizing a lovely wine decanter for pouring would be fun too. To keep with my french theme, Salut seemed only fitting. I loved playing with all the fonts and styles on Shutterfly until I found the one that was picture perfect.

rosé tasting party on apartment 34

I’m also rather obsessed with Shutterfly’s adorable packaging!

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But it’s not a proper wine party without lots of little nibbles. Shutterfly also offers gorgeous marble cheese boards and wood cutting boards so I scooped up a variety and marked them in different of ways – from noting whether a board was for fromage or charcuterie to simply designing one board with the words bon appêtit. I also couldn’t resist creating a bespoke APT34 breadboard too!

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But I really had fun creating place settings and wine tasting notebooks for my ladies. I chose a palette of black, gray, navy and gold. It kept the table from feeling overly feminine but these pieces also melted my heart – because they feature watercolor art my toddler painted! Turning my son’s art into plates and notebooks on Shutterfly was so easy. All I had to do was upload a scan of his artwork and voila! I had lovely glass dishes and cute notebooks for  each guest.

rosé tasting party on apartment 34

For the party, I decided to set the event up as a blind wine tasting. That means you don’t know anything about what you’re drinking. Being a long-time wine geek, I love the process of tasting wine, having to describe what you’re having, comparing one wine to another and really thinking about what you like or don’t like. It’s a really fun exercise and quite educational if you’re a wine novice. While rosé is often referred to as the pink water of summer, there are actually very good rosés out there. You just have to know what you’re looking for.

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shop the post: glass plates / notebooks / wine glasses / marble cheese boards / wood cutting boards / glass wine decanter / table throw

Throughout lunch, we sipped on each wine, talking about the flavor profile (fruity or earthy?) how heavy or light it felt, how it paired with the food, which one we thought was the cheapest or the most expensive. Conversation may have also frequently wandered to toddler tantrums and what the heck is up with Instagram these days, but we tried to stay focused on the task at hand! Upon the final reveal, we discovered everyone actually liked the mid-tier, $16 bottle of rosé from California best.

All in all, the party was a total success. Thanks to Shutterfly, I was able to design a unique, personally meaningful way to bring friends together. The pieces I designed on Shutterfly made what could have been any old lunch feel a little more extraordinary. But in the end, the afternoon wasn’t really about the wine.  It was about the company, the conversation – the bringing together of friends that we’ll all remember.

I highly recommend checking out Shutterfly to help make your next gathering a little more special.

 

original photography for apartment 34 by stephanie russo, florals by lambert studio 

This post is in partnership with Shutterfly. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own. Thanks for supporting posts that have kept apartment 34’s doors open.

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14 Comments

  1. Oh wow! We do calendar gifts with Shutterfly each year but I had no idea they had so many fun things you could personalize! I can’t wait to try some of these out!

    1. It’s pretty amazing Kristin. I had a great time getting creative.

  2. I loved the decanter design. And about art on plates, are they hand made?

    1. The plates actually feature artwork that my toddler painted! I just scanned the designs into the computer and then uploaded them to Shutterfly. I made each plate come out a little different. They’re really fun!

  3. GORGEOUS post. Thanks for the midweek inspiration!

    -katie xx
    KatieOnAGoodDay.con

  4. I have been searching for something special. Thanks for wine & Shutterfly idea!

    1. Happy to! I’m particularly fond of Azure Rosé from Napa along with Matthiasson though they’re harder to find outside of California. For an everyday rosé Whispering Angel is great.