ONE Campaign Lunch - Preparations

In September of this year the ONE Campaign began making plans to host an artists luncheon here in Nashville. Having come alongside DATA in previous years to facilitate these types of meetings, I volunteered my company's services to ONE. Taking direction from the wonderful people at The Clapham Group, I did several site inspections to find the right venue as they worked out the guest list and details of the lunch with the ONE Campaign.

Aiming at a venue that would seat around 75 people for lunch we settled on a great new place called Uptown 162 in downtown Nashville. It's managed by the staff of The Standard Restaurant which is conveniently located across the street. They were able to offer us the use of the space along with catering and rentals for one fee, thus making it very cost effective along with making the logistics very smooth.




In addition to handling the venue arrangements and set-up details I was tasked with creating centerpieces for the tables. We want to keep things fairly simple and not too elaborate or "banquety." Gina Gallimore of the ONE Campaign sent a picture of an idea that she liked - vases holding simple flowers that were wrapped in brown paper bags tied with ribbon. I adapted that idea slightly to suit our black and white look. I used simple flowers - just carnations and stock - to echo her original idea:

I started by arranging the flowers in these square vases I purchased. Yes, my kitchen counter is often where the magic happens.


And this more of the completed look with the vases wrapped in black tissue paper and tied with a small white ribbon. This kept things simple while still adding a little something so that the tables wouldn't appear too plain.