One of our favorite partnerships we have locally here in the Knoxville, Tennessee community is with Dogwood Arts.
Dogwood Arts is an organization whose mission is to promote and celebrate our region’s arts, culture, and natural beauty. One of the local events that Dogwood Arts organizes, in addition to the Dogwood Arts Festival, is the Knoxville Film Festival.
During its initial year in 2013, the Knoxville Film Festival had more than 2,000 in attendance and screened more than 80 independent films. It is safe to say that the Knoxville Film Festival has become the region’s destination for independent cinema!
When we were contacted to create the menu for the VIP reception, playing host to all the opening night screening guests, we were thrilled to hear the theme: country elegance. This has been a very popular theme within the wedding market in 2014!
Guests were greeted to the tent outside Regal Cinemas Downtown West movie theater with customized lighting design.
Inside the tent, VIP guests enjoyed our food as they arrived from the screening of the opening movie. We designed Tennessee themed hors d’oeuvres that guests could eat while mingling amongst filmmakers and guests.
Bite sized sliders combined Tennessee favorites: Clifty Farms pulled pork BBQ, made in Paris, TN and made a homemade apple butter BBQ sauce with Apple Barn apple butter.
Seasoned cubes of sweet potatoes were wrapped in bacon and served warm to guests on a pick. These may have been the most popular menu item of the evening!
We used world famous Grainger County tomatoes from John Mixon Farms in Rutledge, TN in our tomato goat cheese tarts.
The desserts included two Tennessee types of alcohol, Jack Daniels and Sugarlands Distillery Moonshine! These yellow buttercake cupcakes with caramel icing were topped with a Jack Daniel caramel syrup pipette, giving the cupcake an extra kick!
Using moonshine produced in Gatlinburg, TN at Sugarlands Distillery, we soaked cherries in moonshine and put them atop our coconut macaroons.
As always, it was a pleasure working with Dogwood Arts!
For more information about this event or creating your own customized menu for a corporate event, wedding, social event, or any special occasion visit BradfordEvents.com or call us at (865)522-5552.
Leave a Reply