Mountain Picnic Set Up

This picnic set up on the mountain turned out exactly like I had hoped. The beautiful thing about the whole thing? It only took about 30 minutes to get this all set up and ready for guests.

Planning parties and entertaining doesn’t have to be difficult to create something beautiful. I’m sharing with you the tips that I have and shortcuts that I used to style this picnic on the mountain that feels like a luxury picnic experience.

 

Picnics are an amazing idea for big and little events such as, baby showers, bridal showers, birthday parties, date nights, special anniversary, and even just a small picnic party like we had with friends. (See more video details from our picnic night.)

The Perfect Location

No matter where you live there can be a perfect location for your picnic. Whether that’s:

• in the back yard
• living room floor (see these indoor picnic food ideas)
• at the beach (see these beach picnic food ideas)
• public parks
• on the farm
• on a mountain

Picnic Colors

When planning this picnic, I knew I wanted to keep the colors soft yet make sure that I had a pop of color so the picnic didn’t blend in completely with the surroundings.

So knowing that the bright red fruits on the charcuterie boards would add that amount of color, I knew the colors of the flowers, pillows, blankets and napkins, could also be soft, yet still colorful.

Decorating Tip:

When deciding on colors for your picnic, it’s important to consider the surroundings of where your picnic will be. Will it be fall, so the colors will be orange, green and reds all around? Springtime, where bright green, whites, and light pinks will be outside? Or perhaps it will be inside and the walls are a certain color, or the furniture is a bright color that will be important to work with.

My biggest tip for working with any color, is to keep the decorations for your picnic, neutral and with greenery as your pop of color. The greenery will provide a pop of color while the neutral colors can blend in with almost any surroundings.

Picnic Tables

The picnic table that I used for this picnic is one that I found online and fell in love with because it folds up for easy storage and you can unscrew the legs and store them inside. Plus, the design of the boards are beautiful, as well as the colors of the wood and it even comes with a carrying handle!

So if your picnic is away from home, this table is easy to take along with you. It also comes with two different sizes of legs, so you can have table with short legs (what you see in the photos), or even shorter legs.

However if you don’t want to use a picnic table like I used here, using pallets is a great way to also set up a space, or using saw horses and a wooden table top (or door, or plywood) like you see in our backyard pop-up dinner party.

Serveware

Since snacking and having cocktails were on the menu, using small plates and mini tongs (similar) were perfect for enjoying the small bites of food.

We also used beautiful french wine glasses (not pictured here – but seen on the Instagram video) for the champange that we thoroughly enjoyed that night.

For the place settings, I thought it would be fun to use kraft gift tags, tie those around the tongs, and write adorable adjectives on each tag, so each guest could choose an adjective for them. (i.e. captivating, exquisite, etc.)

Drinks

Because I look for an excuse to buy and have pink champagne, it was a must for this mountain picnic.

Chilling it in a woven beverage tub really helped bring in the wood-color from the picnic table. (It has since sold out but here are some other adorable beverage tubs: Jute Robe Beverage Tub and this Rose Copper Tub.

Food Ideas

There’s something about a beautiful charcuterie board on a picnic table and have three boards full of our favorite snacks was something we were looking so foward to. Fun tip: See how to make salami roses for a charcuterie board too.

I share a lot of my charcuterie boards on a just-for-fun Charcuterie Board Instagram page, if you’re looking for some ideas!

If charcuterie boards aren’t what you desire for your picnic, other great ideas include:

• food from your favorite restaurants
• a home-cooked meal
• food bar (such as burger-bar, dessert bar, etc.)

Or you’ll find amazing recipes to use in this list of picnic food for couples!

Instead of doing one big board, I thought it would be easier to do 3 smaller boards so guests could easily reach the different items. This charcuterie board is similar to 2 of the board sizes/shapes that I used for this spread since they were narrow and longer, so they could be enjoyed more easily by each side of the table.

For the dessert “board” (which I actually used a round marble cake stand) I feel like it gives the table a little height and was a focal point that guests could feel drawn to. (I mean, who doesn’t love sweets?)

Decor

For the decor, such as pillows, flowers and accents, I decided to keep it simple, yet classy. If you’ve ever heard “less is more”, I’m a firm believer in that saying and believe it applies to decorating too. Sometimes the surroundings can also be part of the experience.

If you see something I’ve used in this picnic set up that you’d love to get for yourself too, I’ve linked to the items below:

• Fabric napkin
• Greenery
• Small floral blossom
• Bunny tail flowers in pink
• Candle holders
• Candles
• Square tufted pillows
• Round pillows
• Large square throw pillow
• Blankets on ground
• Lanterns (similar)
• Blanket as table runner (no longer available)

Here’s to hoping you have the very best time at your own picnic!