Finally Fall: Welcome Autumn picnic

{living}

As promised here are the pictures from our "Welcome Fall" picnic.  I kept seeing pictures everywhere of fall picnics and thought that would be a really nice get together for early fall, and then when I noticed that the autumnal equinox this year fell on a Sunday (Sunday afternoon being one of the best times for parties for us since my husband has Sundays off and there doesn't seem to be as much going on on Sundays - after Church time anyway), I knew it was meant to be. {haha} A lot of the inspiration I had seen for fall picnics had (as does most fall-themed things) centered largely around pumpkins and orange color schemes, but since I already use a lot of pumpkins and pumpkin inspired color schemes for Halloween parties and Pre-Thanksgiving dinner I wanted to go in a little different direction with it.  I knew that we were going to be going to pick apple sometime in September, and used that as a starting point.  I also wanted to make sure that it had an early fall feel since it was the first official day of fall, so I went with apples and sunflowers and pinwheels and shades of red and sunflower/marigold/deep yellow for the decorations, and served apple cider and finger foods that were apple themed (apple blondies, apple pie cookies, caramel apple bites, carmelized onion and apple mini quiches, mini bacon-cheddar quiches, and grilled cheddar with bacon on honey-apple-oat bread tea sandwiches). 

I also got a couple vinyl tablecloths to put down on the ground (which really turned out to be good thing because the ground was still a little damp from rain the night before) and a few bales of straw to sit on (or against) and a few cheap fleece throws to cover them. 

I had an idea to use a pallet to put all the food on and then I had the idea to put fancy little legs on it and make a little table out of it.  My husband managed to get a pallet to use and made the table for me.

We dug a couple old picnic baskets out of our basement (they had been my grandparent's) and I put the glasses and straws on them. And set the basket I had taken apple picking next to them with some burgundy and yellow mums nestled inside.

I hung the banner I had made out of leftover fabric from other projects on the fence and the scene was set.