Hosting Tips From A Top Florist
Genevieve Stevenson
I love to mix all ages when I entertain. In our family, we have lots of brothers and sisters who are all married with babies and children of different ages. We all get on so well, so we enjoy getting together, letting the kids run around in the garden while we cook and catch up.
I prefer a daytime event to an evening one. It’s more relaxed and the timings make it easier for all the different generations. My husband Charlie tends to do all the cooking, and I do the table.
The table is where I spend most of my energy. I love taking the time to make it really beautiful. More is more for me. I’m usually led by whatever flowers I’ve got or the tablecloth as a starting point. At the moment, I’m loving our new large-scale Posie cloth. I’m adding a lot of bows on everything from candlesticks to vases and napkins – they make everything feel instantly joyful. I’ve got a few dahlias and cosmos left too, so I’m filling our Cherry Loving Cups with them and having two big arrangements in the middle of the table, dotted among lots of multicoloured candles and carousels. When those are over, I’ll move onto paper anemones and ranunculus, which I’ll mix in with lots of evergreen foliage.
I do like to use colour on my tables. It depends on my mood, but usually I’ll go for mad colour by mixing patterns with stripes, checks, flowery glassware and use multicoloured flowers running down the table too.
If I could, I’d have flowers on every single surface of the house. I always go for locally grown and seasonal flowers as and when I can, though it’s tricky when we’re not in the British growing season. Now, for example, I start filling the house with lots of forced bulbs instead of cut flowers. When we entertain, I tend to use lots of little bud vases dotted down the table, mixing the heights as they go.
Genevieve Stevenson
You don’t need to spend a lot of money on flowers to make an impact. Some supermarkets have brilliant and affordable flowers, especially in tulip season. Try to find a local grower and have a look at flowers from the farm website to find yours. I love mixing seasonal flowers, specifically the shapes and colours and heights. I aim to have at least five shapes, so they sit beautifully together. I’m very drawn to pinks and reds at the moment and a lot of foliage. I think using one type of flower en masse can be very effective, but it’s not my style. I want everything to feel very airy and light – like it’s growing out of the table. Always go seasonal when you can, as the flowers are in their prime then.
When it comes to tableware, I love my sister-in-law Matilda Goad’s collection. I also like Daylesford, and I often visit Zara Home. I also enjoy making place cards – it’s very therapeutic, plus it makes the event feel that little bit more special.
For candles, I use a mix of heights and thicknesses. I tend to mix skinny ones in with traditional tapers and tea lights. If I’m in a ‘more is more’ mood, I might mix the colours, but if I want things to feel calmer, I like an ivory candle (never white). The overall effect is quite wispy – super simple, very effective and nothing blocks the view of your friends across the table.
Hosting needs to be as easy as possible – otherwise it feels like a chore. On the rare occasion that I’m cooking, I would do a roast chicken, possibly Skye McAlpine's Chicken Aphrodite, which is the most delicious, simple, one-pot recipe, with a couple of delicious, seedy, herby salads. I then cheat for pudding and buy a couple of profiterole towers which I rearrange onto a beautiful plate.
To make entertaining as stress free as possible, I like to find dishes I can prepare beforehand. Sharing platters are brilliant, or sometimes a shared starter with a plated main course. I have a great selection of platters that I’ve collected over the years. They are perfect for serving huge salads. Charlie likes using big wooden boards and laying out platters of salamis, Parma ham, cornichons, pâtés, bowls of homemade hummus with honey drizzled on top. I’ll be on salad duty. I love a good dressing. I mix olive oil, honey, apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard – I like them quite sweet with pine nuts and seeds, usually sunflower and pumpkin.
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