Ideas and Examples for a Beautiful Mother’s Day

LOVE YOU, MOTHER! This is a table I set for Mother’s Day a few of years ago. My mother and my aunt June were both going to be present, as well as other family members. There is nothing my mother likes better than a beautifully set table, so I was determined to make her happy. I purchased the roses at a local wholesale club. The colors track the colors in the dinnerware. Cousin Becky and I worked on replicating an arrangement that I had seen when I stayed at the Inn on the Biltmore estate in Asheville, North Carolina. We tiered the flowers so that they were in concentric squares. My mother and aunt were blown away. Mission accomplished!

STILL LOVE YOU, MOTHER! For Mother’s Day 2010, it was just going to be my parents, Michael and I. I knew mother would be pleased by this beautiful table and all the individual flower arrangements, as well as the the large arrangement in the center of the table. I used a solid color tablecloth as the base. Then I took some beautiful gold embroidered sheer fabric that I purchased at a local fabric store and overlaid the solid color tablecloth with it. (I’ll let you in on a secret. I duct-taped the whole mess underneath the table. That served two purposes. I didn’t have to hem the fabric, and my elderly parents did not get tangled up in edges of tablecloth hanging down.)

I pulled out all the stops for this occasion. Note the beautiful purple hydrangea in the center that serves as the base for the floral arrangement with the white roses, then the gold rimmed dinner plates and the amethyst glass in the salad plates, the cordial glasses and the water glasses. Near my mother’s plate I also had several small vases with individual arrangements so that she felt like she was the center of attention, which was exactly what I wanted. The centerpiece was simple, but striking. The three individual vases ringing my mother’s plate were filled with peonies, azaleas, and salvia from our garden. After the meal, I boxed the small vases for her to take home.

I’m not sure I can remember exactly what I served that day, but I will never forget the look of wonder and delight on my mother’s face when she walked into the dining room. It made me very happy to see her so happy.