Hollis - Upscale Downhome

I had been in love with Brian for yearsor at least as deeply in love as you can be in sixth gradeand the party seemed like the perfect way to establish a deeper connection. Sadly for me, and my grass skirt, Brian spent most of that summer evening doing cannonballs instead of paying attention to me. Can you imagine my chagrin? There I was in my best Kmart two-piece, rocking my vanilla-flavored Lip Smackers; my side pony was totally on point, and he didnt look at me even once! Ill be honest, it was the first time I failed to lock in a new boyfriend over processed snack food, but sadly, not the last. Bright side? I did discover a lifelong love for hosting parties. Oh sure, I was familiar with parties. I had grown up with parents who loved to entertain, but that luau was the first time Id tried it on my own.

It gave me a hint of what it was like to pick out invitations and design a theme. I chose Hawaiian Punch as our beverage (something my twelve-year-old brain thought was terribly witty), and kebabs as our appetizer. In the days before Pinterest, or, gosh, even the Internet (man, that makes me feel old!), it was a highly thematic party and I was utterly proud of myself. So what started as a ploy toward preteen romance became a lifelong passion. That passion is why I still love to entertain at home. I love parties and potlucks.

I love family dinners and cocktails with my friends on the back patio. I love Sunday suppers and Taco Tuesdays and celebrating on any day that ends in Y. I love the food, the wine, and having friends and family and people from all walks of life come together in one well-decorated space. I love giving people something to look forward to. I love sharing recipes. I love oohing and aahing over Memas carrot cake or discussing how adding the sweet basil really set off the flavors in Daddys spaghetti sauce. I love themes, and cocktail napkins, and finding the perfect platter to display the turkey.

I love all of these things, because everyone I know loves them, too. If there are people out there who dont enjoy a great meal with their loved onesIve never met them!maybe thats just because they havent been to my house. i grew up in a family full of loud Okie expats who migrated to Southern California during the dust bowl. It was by way of these charactersmy grandpa Bill, my grandma Opal, Mema, and Papa and a menagerie of aunts, uncles, and cousinsthat I learned to cook (and eat) at an early age. In our southern culture, everything revolved around food: What were we cooking? Who was bringing what to the potluck? Where would we celebrate Christmas dinner this year? Sharing a meal with the people I love has always been an integral part of my life. And because of this, food and I go together like peanut butter and jelly, like cheese and crackers, like a chocolate sundae with a side of fries it just makes sense.

My family and I lived in a tiny pink parsonage on the outskirts of a small town on a street called Weedpatch Highway (yep, you read that right). As the baby of four, I had an unlimited supply of hand-me-down clothes, and even though my small hometown is in California, I spoke with the same thick twang as all of my southern relatives. So, as you might guess, the phrase formal entertaining wasnt part of our vernacular. Honestly, we didnt even have a word for it. My family just always had people over, always threw parties, and always made the biggest, fattest deal out of every holiday and birthday. And regardless of how much (or frankly, little) money we had, everyone was welcome.

We werent the Brady Bunchfar from it in fact. But those Christmases, those barbecues, those Sunday suppers are some of the most precious memories I have of my childhood. It was how I learned to show love: by cooking, by baking, by welcoming guests into our home, by setting the table with our mismatched china. Even on a random weeknight, there was always room for celebration. at the ripe old age of seventeen, I moved to Los Angeles to become an actress and marry Matt Damon (in that order). I quickly lost interest in acting when I realized it required the complete expulsion of carbohydrates from my diet, and as for Matt well, my real-life Prince Charming turned out to be much cuter.

I met Dave Hollis when I was nineteen years old and he was twenty-seven. He was smart and funny and so, so tall, and we were very best friends from day one. When I looked at him I saw sunshine glowing around his head like magic and I could just make out the sound of a choir of baby angels singing his praises. When he looked at me he might have seen all kinds of things, but he couldnt get past the most obviousmy age. He was absolutely too old for me, he said. He was absolutely not interested in me, he assured.

It took me about a year and a half to convince him he was wrong on both counts. Weve been happily married for twelve years. L.A. did prove lucrative in other ways, too. I launched my company, Chic Events, there in January of 2004. My company started out small: me, myself, and the occasional rogue intern working out of the basement of my town house, using my cell phone as an office line, and taking all client meetings at the local Starbucks.

I used pictures from my own wedding to build a Web site and begged my friends and family for referrals. I devoured magazines of every kind: wedding, architecture, fashion, interior designanything that might give me ideas on planning events in a fresh, new way. I worked hard to make my work original rather than regurgitating the same candelabra over and over again. As a result my design aesthetic, just like my big southern family, is eclectic. I love bright, bold pops of color and mixing luxury pieces with something I found in the bargain bin. I love stylish design, but Im a busy mother of three little boys so it also has to be comfortable and practical.

You can see this sense of style weave its way through my early portfolio of work all the way to the posts on my Web site, the Chic Site, today. This mix of my downhome roots and an upscale aesthetic has become my signature, but in the beginning it wasnt a style choice. Like all the coolest things, it was born out of necessity. When I booked those first client events years ago, I was doing parties for pennies and struggling to throw brides their dream wedding on a five-dollar budget. That meant I had to organize my spending around one or two