Sustainable Dinner Party Decor

With a little forethought and creativity, you can decorate your dinner party without sacrificing style or sustainability. Here's how:

1. Buy locally-grown, organic flowers for your dinner table arrangements. Use old wine bottles (remove the label by soaking in warm soapy water overnight in the sink) as rustic, makeshift vases for the flowers.

Even better, consider buying potted organic flowers that will last long after the dinner party is over. Once the blooms fall off, re-plant your flowers outside so they can blossom again next year.

2. Buy sustainable bottles of wine to pair with your dinner menu, and add decorative torn strips of natural linen over the bottle labels for a earthy feel. Use brown twine to tie the linen securely onto the bottle and place the decorated bottles down the table spaced evenly apart so they can double as decor.

3. Choose soy wax candles to impart a lovely, warm glow on your sustainable dinner party. Soy wax is easier on the environment since it releases less pollutants into the air as it burns.

4. Forgo a regular table linen, and instead use burlap sack remnants as an 18" wide runner down the center of your table. Try visiting a local coffee shop or farmers market to see if you can collect old burlap sacks for free to use as your runner.

5. Use linen napkins made from organic cotton that can be rewashed and used again.

6. Finally, serve food family-style from platters. This way, leftovers are easily stored and refrigerated for subsequent meals instead of brushed off a guest's overfilled plate at the end of the evening. Or, send guests home with leftover packages made from corn plastic or bamboo containers.