Jackie Fogartie

Wedding & Event Planner

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Panthers are in the Superbowl – Have some cheese!

February 4, 2016 By Jackie Fo Leave a Comment

Did you guys hear about the Superbowl this year? That’s right, my hometown team, the Charlotte based Carolina Panthers have rocked and rolled their way to a Super Bowl run! Can we just talk about Cam Newton – I mean what can I say? That smile. That personality. Those pants?! I heard one sportcaster say it best – if you don’t like Cam Newton, there’s something wrong with YOU, not him! I personally love his celebrating and dancing. Why not celebrate the little things in this world, especially when there is so much negative stuff out there. I hope Cam dances his way to a Super Bowl ring!

(Note: In case you can’t tell, Cam bashing is not allowed on this site.)

If you don’t care about the game this year, and let’s face it, I’ve so been there, I wanted to at least give you some yummy food options from some of my older posts and Super Bowl parties past! I have four recipes and they all include my favorite food group – CHEEEEEESE. Because what’s a SB party without a bunch of cheese? Pictures and recipe links below!

Buffalo Chicken Dip – a staple!

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Recipe Link

Pimento Cheese tarts – I’m a pimento cheese addict and I don’t care who knows. Shout out to my fave brand Palmetto.

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Recipe Link

Mac and Cheese Bites – These mac and cheese bites are one of my most popular posts and the post is from 2010 – when the blog was just a little babe! Sorry for the small and bad photo. It was before I got a real camera and started taking slightly less embarassing shots.

bites2-300x188

Recipe link

Creamy Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Bites – Ah, one of my friend Hillary’s finest moments! Why yes, I would like to dip grilled cheese into tomato soup fondue. This is another throwback recipe from 2012.

DSC_03241-300x201

Recipe Link

How are you celebrating for the big game? I’m going to a Superbowl party filled with all Panther fans of course. Guys I really, really hope the next time I post we are Superbowl champs! Who’s with me? It’s a bird…it’s a plane….it’s Suuuuuuuper Cam!

GO PANTHERS!!

Filed Under: Parties, Superbowl party, Uncategorized Tagged With: Cam Newton, carolina panthers, cheese appetizers, cheese dips, Superbowl food, Superbowl party Leave a Comment

7th Annual Cookie Party: Candy Cane Lane + a Peppermint White Russian

December 23, 2015 By Jackie Fo Leave a Comment

If you don’t know, we take our Christmas Cookie Party pretttty seriously around these parts. This years party “Candy Cane Lane” was our 7th Annual and we had a blast!

CookiePartyMantel Bar Cart

If you want to review last years party theme – Gold and Glitter – you can check that out in the link below:

Gold and Glitter Cookie Party

 We had peppermint cocktails, candy canes of all sizes and a very special guest. Let’s review our fun day on Candy Cane Lane!

We stepped our invitation game up this year by hand delivering box-style invitation wrapped with a red and striped ribbon.

CookiePartyInvite2

The invitation was designed by Scratch Paper Studio (LOVE Natasha’s work and she’s local for you Charlotte peeps!) and was accented by you guessed it – a candy cane! Party tip: A creative invitation sets the tone for the fun that’s to come!

CookiePartyInvite1

Guests were thrilled to be greeted by a fabulously decorated bar cart rimming with festive goodies and the aforementioned Candy Cane Cocktail. More on that later. Thanks to Tarjay for having this bar cart that we added to our party arsenal. We can always count on you. Ridiculously over decorated bar cart below:

Bar Cart

Not only did guests have a choice of the candy cane cocktail or a cranberry Prosecco immediately upon arrival, the drinks were delivered by the one and only Santa Claus! (Note: Large variety of Santa costumes at your nearest Party City.)

CookiePartyMantel Santa

As usual, my mom strung her beautiful garland up and down the stairs in the entryway. We accented the garland with striped bows from Michaels (aka my 2nd home and the reason why I’m constantly covered in glitter during the month of December). We also lined up our cookie tins on the stairs like so:

CookiePartyStaircase

The trees and mantels were decorated with extra special Candy Cane Care.

CookiePartyMantel2

CookiePartyMantel4

CookiePartyMantel

The main cookie table (the party has grown so much we have 2 tables of cookies now!) was lined with a beautiful red chevron runner I rented from gals at Party Reflections and a plethora of candy cane trees. It was a real peppermint overload. But in a good way.

CookiePartyTable2

CookiePartyMantel Table

Even the flowers were brimming with candy canes!

CookieParty Flowers

There were 33 cookie contenders this year and they were all winners in my book. Some standouts:

Candy Cane Cookies (you know I love a theme so I extra loved these):

CookiePartyCookie

The winner for Most Creative were these ADORABLE Holiday Hedgehog cookies!

CookieParty Holiday Hedgehog

Due the extreme number of cookies, people had to share cookie plates. Even a Cookie Monster couldn’t eat this many cookies…

CookiePartyPlate

Votes were tallied using the official ballots as we do every year:

CookiePartyBallot

Now that we’ve covered the cookies, let’s talk signature cocktail. Every year at the cookie party we do a signature cocktail and this years was no exception! We also provided wine and cranberry Prosecco (Prosecco + Cranberry Juice = Cranberry Prosecco), but the signature cocktail was our Candy Cane White Russian (really a Peppermint White Russian). Here’s the recipe – there’s DEFINITELY time to whip this up for your Christmas dinner!

White Russianpic monkey

Candy Cane White Russian (Note: Measurements aren’t exact. I just kept pouring the stuff in until it tasted pepperminty and delicious! It was a tough job but somebody had to take one for the team.)

  • Whole Milk (It’s Christmas, don’t use skim milk people)
  • Kahlua
  • Peppermint Vodka – Specialty vodka made by Smirnoff around the holidays. It has a pretty red and white striped bottle. Can be substituted with Peppermint Creamer – creamer for your coffee! It also tastes delicious if you can’t find the specialty vodka.
  • Lots of ice (Warm Milk = Ew)
  • Garnish with a mini candy cane hanging off the side of the glass.

Enjoy! I mixed up a pitcher of these because come on… milk and cookies?

So let’s review: We had cookies, white russians, freaking SANTA CLAUS and good friends and family. We were totally winning…..

Here I am with my hostesses with the mostesses, my mom and my sister in law (and Santa). (Note: Wearing a Panthers Jersey because the game was on during the party – poor scheduling but we won 38-0 that day so cookies must be good luck? Go Panthers baby!)

Cookie party 2015

It was a super successful 7th Annual Cookie Party- here’s the the 8th! I hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas!

Cheers, Peace and Love to all!

Filed Under: Cocktail, DIYs, Party Tips and Food, Holiday, Parties Leave a Comment

Bubbles and Bites: A non baby shower baby shower

September 15, 2015 By Jackie Fo 3 Comments

 So what do you do when your sis-in-law is having her third baby? You obviously force her into having a small baby shower of course. I’m just joking…there was no “forcing” –  maybe a little arm twisting! But after my sis Drew found out her two beautiful daughters were going to become big sisters to a presh little BOY, she agreed to having a little party to celebrate! I mean, the boy doesn’t have any hand me down clothes, so we had to get him some masculine onesies at least. Real men wear pink and all that, but I’m sure the new babe doesn’t want to share EVERYTHING with his big sisters! It’s practical really, the party was a must-do for the little fella.

Bottom line, not only do I get a NEPHEW to spoil now, I also get to throw a party… it’s a win-win for Aunt Jackie!!!

As the title of this posts suggests, this was really a non-shower baby shower. No blue ribbon, no baby-themed decor, just some bubbly, bites and beautiful flowers. Plus a whole bunch of wine for the ’bout to be 3-time Mama to take home…I’ll explain!

Flowers2

As with most invitations, the invitation really set the tone for the party. After carefully considering wording (i.e. the words “baby shower” weren’t allowed) I settled for “Bubbles and Bites” and called it a celebration of Drew and the new addition to the family. Bubbles is for the champagne (lots of it) that was served and Bites was for the simple but delicious spread of cheese, charcuterie and yummy pastries.

Thanks again to my invitation guru and the creative force Natasha behind Scratch Paper Studios. She got my vision perfectly!

invitation

For a split second I worried that the invitation was too “girly” for a boys shower and then I realized…it’s not a shower so we can do what we want. Freedom…ohh freedom!

In my opinion, flowers are a must-do for any occasion.  Luckily, Drew simply adores flowers too, so that’s why I went big on flowers. They were at the party, on the invites, even on my dress, ha! I scoured Charlotte and its many stores for the perfect collection of vases. I think these gold leaf vases from Hobby Lobby were my favorite.

Flowers3

Although I’m really loving these gold chevron candle holders that I used as vases too…also from Hobby Lobby.

Flowers2

Flowers

Please note I got all these flowers from the Farmers Market. I adore going to the Farmers Market for flowers; their flowers are the most colorful, beautiful and unusual for the price. I got all these flowers for only $40 and I got to pick them out stem by stem. You can’t beat that.

See below for my flower arranging station – all you  need is:

  • newspaper
  • floral shears (obviously mine were no where to be found so I’m using kitchen scissors which I promptly washed)
  • Spotify (music)
  • measuring cups filled with water so you don’t have to go to the sink 4 million times
  • trash bag for clippings
  • coffee (because it was the morning)

flowersetup

The flower-filled party was held at the lovely Bistro La Bon restaurant in Plaza Midwood and was catered by Lisa with Lucy Catering.

As I mentioned, in addition to bubbles we had a delicious and beautiful spread of cheese, charcuterie and pastries. Give me all the cheese and meat please.

Proscuitto2

Proscuitto

Cheese

Did I mention the macaroons? Not macarons, macaroons. I think I ate my weight in macaroons as did everyone else. Yay to coconutty, airy deliciousness.

Macaroons

We actually had both macaroons and macarons at this party…I’ll get to the macarons later, but in case you’re wondering, see below. Don’t be that fool at a party that confuses the colorful, French MacaRON with the coconut dream MacaROON. You’re welcome.

Image Credit 

For the bubbly, I called up my girl Whitney at Blis to personalize some champagne flutes with a #3. Get it??!?!?! For the 3rd babe? I thought it was totes clever and a subtle shout out to the reason we were all boozin’ together on a Sunday afternoon. If you need anything personalized, call up Blis and they’ll get it done lickety split with a smile on their lovely faces.

Flutes

Flutes2

I loved these fun “Hooray” napkins from Swoozies. Hooray for cute cocktail napkins, am I right?

napkins

Now, let’s talk about that crate of wine that the lucky mama went home with. In addition to amazing little boy clothes (including an outfit with SUSPENDERS from yours truly), I thought it would be a hoot for each guest to give this wine loving mama a bottle of wine. To be consumed post pregnancy of course, but she needs to be prepared! She’s not going to have time to get to the wine store with three kids running around.

 I had wine tags made to match the invites (Thanks again Scratch Paper Studio!) that said “Open this bottle when….”. Each guest wrote something on the tag and Drew read them out loud at the party. They were hilarious, sweet, adorable and overall just fun. I’m going to pat myself on the back and say this was one of my better ideas. (Humble brag.)

wine tags

So when she opens up one of these bottles at 2pm on a particularly hectic day, she will have something fun to read! Plus, it was really funny when she saw all this wine at the party – she was like, what is THAT, is that all for ME?! I love a good surprise.

wine_
For party favors, I sent everyone home with pistachio Macarons (not Macaroons, those were earlier) from Cafe Monte.   Cafe Monte was coincidentally the site of Drew’s shower for baby Claire a few years ago. That was a good one too. (Side note: I just went back and read that post, and it appears I have a bit of a habit of forcing Drew to have parties for her kids. Whoops. Sorry Drew!)


Macarons

Here I am with  my beautiful sis at the party…!  (We’ve mutually agreed to drop the in-law, it just gets in the way.) I mean, could she look better?!?!?!

drew jackie

For people out there who are having their 2nd or 3rd baby or 5th (whoa though), you can still have a simple yet special celebration to welcome a new life into this crazy world!! It’s no surprise coming from me, but I 100% believe that things should be celebrated, so don’t hesitate to celebrate all things, big or small! I simply can’t wait to meet the new little guy (and selfishly get my wine drinking buddy back LOL)!

In other news, today is Mr. Fo’s birthday. Happy Birthday to my love – I know it will be a  great year ahead! Cheers and here’s to celebrating all the wonderful things!

Filed Under: Baby Shower, DIYs, Party Tips and Food, Parties 3 Comments

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Meet Jackie Fo

Jackie FogartieJackie Fo is an event and wedding planner, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Despite her Jersey roots, she’s kind of a softie that loves weddings, parties and people. {READ MORE}

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