This cherry place setting is full of bright, cheery cherries, which are fun inspiration for party decor. Since cherries are a sure sign of summer, it’s a great decor idea for any summer party: barbecues, birthday parties, bridal or baby showers, even summer weddings—any event that reminds us how sweet life is.
I always love picking a theme for a party. Not only does it make everything more cohesive and fun at the party, a theme also makes planning a party easier. Having a theme in mind helps you pick everything from decor to the menu! For this cherry party, we started with the Cherry Bomb place setting from Social Studies, a company which makes it easy to entertain by renting party-ready place settings and other chic and on-theme table decor. For more info on the tablesetting, click here.
Cherry Decor
In the center of the table, alongside bowls of wooden cherries and small vases with daisies, we placed cherry-covered candleholders that we DIY-ed out of votives, clear containers, red dot office label stickers and a green Sharpie to draw on the stems.
We crafted cherry decor out of pom poms and pipe cleaners to dress up the napkins. It’s a fun and easy craft that can also be turned into a garland, placecard, or gift tag. But you don’t need to stop here! You can craft cherries out of so many things from pom poms to your own cherry balloon wall.
For fun wall decor, turn two red balloons and some green paper into a pair of cherries—This is one of my favorite ideas from Celebrate Everything! (Click here for the how-to and the printable leaf template.) Make several and you can tape them to the wall as fun decor or a photo backdrop!
Cherry Food and Drink
It’s fun and easy to make a cherry toast snack appetizer out of cherry tomatoes, chives, and basil, arranged to look like the fruit, on top of toast spread with ricotta cheese.
This drink is a cherry spritz made with seltzer, maraschino cherries, and mint—but there are lots of options you can cherry pick! You could also spike it with gin or vodka, or opt for a Shirley Temple or a cherry soda.
Cherry Sweets
For dessert, you can serve anything from a bowlful of cherries to ice cream sundaes with a cherry on top to these adorable cherry cupcakes, made using cherry sour balls and green apple sour belts. You can use so many candies to create a cherry or just pipe on red and green icing to make a cherry!
Any red round sweets can be turned into a cherry! Think two mini, red-frosted cupcakes, cherry macarons or cherry cookies, joined by green icing piped into a stem or green apple sour belts cut and shaped into a stem.
Cherry Favor
Our DIY Cherry Cracker Favor is a fun favor that doubles as tabletop decor. Leave one at each place for everyone to undo to find a cherry surprise, whether that’s cherry-shaped or -flavored sweets or DIY cherry jewelry!
Cherry Placecards and Game
Above each plate we placed a printable placecard you can download in two options: Mon Cheri, which is the masculine version of “my dear” in French, and Ma Cherie, the feminine version. Each has a blank line at the bottom where you can write in a guest’s name.
Next to that we put another card, for an icebreaker game! It reades “Life is a bowl of cherries because…” Each person can fill in their answer, then drop it in a bowl in the middle of the table. Pull them out, read them aloud and ask everyone to guess who wrote what.
Beyond Cherries
You can also develop a place setting or party theme based on any one of your favorite fruits—like lemons—or another treat such as pie. The possibilities are endless! Just pick an inspiration, then think of food and drink, decor, place cards, favors and games to match!