A Very Baroncini Holiday Party Recap!

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0:14hi everyone how are you i'm doing great it is the monday after the holiday party which is on saturday a lot of you were in my dms asking questions so i thought i would recap it we'll make this like a little quickie fun chic solo you got a solo two weeks in a row which makes me feel very exposed but thank you so much for listening and all your feedback on my episode this week was really nice so every year we have a holiday party the genesis of the holiday party has always been around the lpa holiday collection but because it's in our home because Davide is here and because it's not just like activation with girls, you know, because listen, obviously I have to promote the clothes and I want to, because I love them and they're really meaningful for me, but you know, we have to figure out really good ways to market them.

1:17And so I'm just going to be honest with you. And I hate if this sounds like in any way negative and we all have to do it and I'm going to continue to do it. So I get it. But like, we are in this era of like trying to figure out how to like promote our brands and a lot of that like manifests into like a dinner and for me this is why like I never go to events at the end of a very long work day and then like trying to get in time with my kids and like you know I have a rule about missing dinner bath and bed with them which I work my schedule around that but like, I don't ever want to miss. I mean, if we have a bunch of work stuff to do, like the max I'll miss a week is two bedtimes, but I usually am able to plan everything around it.

2:07But anyway, I digress. There are lots of like dinner activations that happen all the time. And so I'll get an invitation and it's just like, as much as I really want to support everybody's brand, like I can't be running around driving an hour from Pasadena more than that in traffic at the end of a long workday, missing time with my kids to like do an event. And I do feel like, you know, every brand, everyone who works on these things, put so much time and energy into these dinners. And it's like, you know, what is a way that you can like show what's happening without it all kind of, it doesn't all look the same, but sometimes it can all look the same.

2:44I don't know. I would actually be like really interested of all of you on the outside, like what you see online that like really resonates with you. But for me, when we were talking about doing events for LPA, like every time we like come up would for years, I come up with a concept. I was like, this seems like too kitschy. And I think it just needs to be an extension of us and our home, which is obviously like everything we're doing for Barron Cheney too. It's like, it's just all happening in these like really like authentic ways. And so I was like, where, where is this girl wearing a holiday outfit?

3:20She's running into a holiday party. And so I'm like, let's just have the holiday party. Right. So what gets really tricky, if you want to know if I'm like a, sorry, I have neuro gum in my mouth so I can focus. What gets really tricky, what's really hard is like, we always, we plan, we design holiday like around a year in advance. We're doing long lead for holiday right now. And the factories and everything, like they're still always delays. So the goal is for the product to launch like way, you know, to, to get it up like at least a week before the holiday party. But this year with everybody's efforts from fabric to production to, by the way, then it has to line up with Revolve.

4:10So like I had to do a photo shoot and then the Revolve team needs to like approve the editorial image. Like there's just so many steps and so many emails and so much coordination. And so I could only get, you know, we had to make like a PDF for people to like get them dressed. And I was like sending, I mean, I do that all by myself. I don't have an assistant. So it was a lot of coordinating. And then the event is something that has the same structure every year. And we use, we have the same food every year. So like Evan Funky, it used to be him. He used to come at now. Obviously he's like such a big deal.

4:52So Funky does the food. We do the same food every year. And if I were to give you advice on how to do this, this is beyond like available for anybody to do at home. So you can buy, what we do is we have multiple kinds of, we have like pasta. Okay. So this year it was like a baked pasta dish, but that's, it's not, it's more than that. It's a very meaningful dish and it has a lot of ingredients in it that are specifically very Sicilian because Evan and Davide are very close and it's beautiful. We did it to Bala one year. Sometimes we do eggplants, but if I were you, I think there were six of those like large, like foil containers, the, the disposable ones, cause that's the only way they could transfer them over here.

5:37I know I don't like single use items either, but whatever. They do that. And we always do burrata and persimmons. So if we invite, like there's like a, it's around, it's like a hundred people, I think we make enough food between, for like between 75 and a hundred people. If you were still even going to have a party on that scale, you could easily make anything that can be prepped days before and just needs to be reheated up. And then we had obviously his focaccia. So if I were you and you were having a large event at your home and you wanted to be someone to cook, a big tip, like if we didn't have Evan, Davide and I would have made, here's what the menu would be if we didn't have Evan.

6:20And that's like a very close relationship we have. And it's a tradition. If we didn't have that, we would absolutely make four large lasagnas like two days before. Lasagna just gets like even better as time goes on. Right. So we would, we would do that or some sort of, you know, dish that you can like reheat and bake. I would do two large salads. Ikea sells these very big salad bowls and I would mix up that lettuce the day before and put, and dressing. And like, I would even keep maybe the dressing on the side when I put it on the table. If we're going Italian themed here, I always love to do like a tre colore salad.

7:07I hate when I pronounce things with an Italian accent because I feel like I'm saying Ibiza, but if I don't do it with Davide, he'll be like, where's your accent? I'm in the middle, guys. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place with this one. A tre colore salad, which is endive radicchio and arugula. Shea Parmesan, lemon olive oil. if you want to add some garlic in the dressing, fabulous. Extra bonus points, you throw in some fresh herbs, like some parsley. It's so good. If you want to do some olives, whatever. And then get just like beautiful big loaves of bread from anywhere and like rip that into pieces.

7:46You can toast that for a second, but like leave it out, leave like vats of olive oil out. Like ask Chad GBT for this, by the way. Like there's so many great ways. So we have a grazing table. We have a big table and that's just open to anybody. The food is there when people come. They come at six. And then I do a dessert table. We go to the Italian market where I've been going my whole life over here and get like a variety of cookies. This year I made a tiramisu. I'm going to make a video on it because it turned out fantastic. Again, I should have made it the day before because tiramisu gets better the longer it sits.

8:19I made that. We put out a pandoro and a panettone and we had a cake, a really cute cake from the Italian deli. And then I like merchandise all that on the table, really cute. And then we have bartenders. So for my mother's 70th birthday, which was what, six years ago, I was like 32. That's when I, for the first time, was able to afford to like pay out of pocket to hire help for our events at the house. Oscar and his wife, Sylvia are like good family friends of like all the families in Pasadena and like do everybody's events. And so they have been doing every event here, like every brand event, the goop dinner they did here.

9:06They've done this party now four years in a row. So they know, this is what I'm going to say to you, if you want to like have a party at this scale, you want to be consistent, hire, find like a bartender, like they help clean up and they bartend and they know our house, like the back of their hand. The goal, I think, and I don't have a lot of help, right? Like I don't have assistants. I don't ever have a stylist. Like I don't, I'm not, I'm like a very tight beat. I don't even think I would pay for that if I could. I like joy for me is doing these things myself. Okay. This is not for everybody, but I think these are the types of things that my mom did and that I want my kids to do.

9:53It's like, sure. Have we had events here where like, you know, we've hired someone and they've come to like help do creative with me. Like, absolutely. Because like, you know, not everybody needs to be a hero, but if it, if this is like something that's in my home and it's like a direct reflection of me and like what, like, and my kids are here and this like everything we make stays in our house during the season, like, yeah, I'm doing it myself. I'm not going to like hire someone, especially because I post it on Instagram. I think it's like really odd to like pay somebody to come do a bunch of stuff for you and then pretend like you're some like person that like does these things.

10:33Like, I think it's really... I don't know. For me, like how I was raised, like my parents cooked and my mom made things and she, and you know, I certainly, I'm not even close to being on her level, but I find it very important to, and Davide does the same thing with Gia. Like he does all that shit by himself. Like, so I find it very cathartic. It makes me feel really good. It makes me really proud of myself to like ramp up for the holidays by watching Christmas movies at night and like putting dried oranges on a wreath, you know, or making little things. It just, and then I look around my house and I'm just like, ah, all feels like really nice.

11:12Or like collecting little vintage Christmas items over the years. Like it's always very, and we still have all of our stuff from when I was little, you know, just, these are the things that like really make a house feel like a home. So if we're going to have an event like this, where we call it like a very barren Cheney Christmas, like you can bet your ass that like I'm doing all of it. Right.

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16:15what I did do also because I was like started to realize the night before that the execution the day of and I'm not somebody who gets their hair and makeup done like I don't get glam I get glam maybe twice a year maximum three times a year I'm totally fine doing my own fucking hair and makeup. But I, but Britt comes and does it every year for this event. And this year she had something at night. So we did it during the day, which was actually very helpful. She came at 1130. She was done by like two. So I spent, you know, two to six. I was like getting dressed when the first guest arrives, but I spent two to six getting everything ready in the house.

16:56And instead of usually she comes later. So if my advice to you, if you're going to do your hair and makeup, I would actually do it and like do like a heavier beat and do it earlier in the day. So you're not doing your makeup as guests arrive or like trying to do your makeup, but realizing that you need to do last minute things. It was really nice to do it during the day. So I'll always do that from now on. So she came into my hair and makeup and then I had JJ, a friend of mine who works on events here when we have like really large scale events and like, I need someone to help me set the table or whatever.

17:32Like he has been really, he did my baby shower with me. Cause I was also doing that by myself. And I was like, I can't do this by myself. So I messaged him the day before. And I was like, I'm so sorry. Do you have like a few hours tomorrow? And thank God he did. Because the other stuff I need to do that, you know, we're gifted alcohol by brands. And like, you know, there's a lot of partnership there. You know, Cosmigos has been giving us alcohol for our events for years, like, you know, in exchange for content, right? Like that's how this works. And these are relationships that we've built for a really long time.

18:07So I also have to make sure that like the bartenders that we're working with and like, you know, we're working with Quattro Gatti, which is an amazing gin brand that I really, really love. And we're like really happy to be working with them. And so we came up with like custom cocktails together. So we had to batch some of those. And that's why I did a martini tower instead of a champagne tower, even though we had sparkling wine, champagne-y stuff from Chandon, which I love, like another brand I've been working with for years. So before even the party happens, we have to make sure that the drinks are being batched properly.

18:39And I tell the bartender, it's like, you know, this is how this drink is supposed to be served. And the bottle is supposed to be like this. You know, you really want to make sure that you are giving back. And this is part of like, if any of you want to work with brands, like I it is really up to you to like harness those relationships and like do right by the brands that you're working with and like I always do my best even though it's like very hard to entertain 100 people and like make sure that like there's like the right amount of content you know I only have one person that like works for me very part-time and that's Lindsay who does my social so she came and like shoots the event and then make sure that we're getting all the like moments with alcohol and everything.

19:19So she came an hour early and prepped. And then we, JJ came and I, I don't, and he knows where a lot of this stuff is in the house, but I said to him, like, I don't want the dishes. I think like are all the platters. I laid them all out on the table for him. And I laid out like all the tablecloths and I was like, okay, the goal here is to, you know, we need to use these like five plates and like these four platters and like whatever, and they need to all be on this table. So let's arrange them where they're going to go. But I also think that there needs to be height on the table and it shouldn't just all be flat.

19:55So I was like, go grab some boxes from the garage. And we used boxes and we used a yoga block under the tablecloth to add a little bit of height. So when you set a tray down, it adds a really beautiful dynamic to the table. I had gone to the flower mart twice. So from the Flower Mart, I always get my wreaths. I get them from Trader Joe's too, but the wreaths at the Flower Mart, they have them like really, really big. Like I said, in my last podcast, I did a lot of like citrus this year. So we made the all citrus wreaths. And then I was like, I had so many of those oranges. I was like, I'm just going to add them to everything.

20:29And I buy, you know, 14, I buy like two 14 foot things of garland. And I just like put garland fucking everywhere. You know, it looks cute on paintings. It looks cute on mirrors. It looks cute in archways. Like I wish I would have done more. And then, you know, if I could put oranges on things I did, I made these really cute little mini trees for either side of the dessert table. So I just buy those like styrofoam cones on Amazon. I'm so upset because Muscatel's, this like really cool store downtown that had insane Christmas decorations. They went out of fucking business. So I had to buy these dumb cones on Amazon.

21:07And I just bought when I was at the flower mart, like they always have an arrangement of like different like pines from trees. So I got like a mixture of a few, some that I knew would fall really nicely. And so I stabbed holes in the styrofoam. I didn't even need any hot glue and hot glue is really hard on those styrofoam things anyway, because it melts it. But I just like made little mini trees. And then I was like, oh, the oranges would look really cute on there too. So I used my garden wire to like put some oranges on. And then I put bows on top of them because I just try to put bows on as many things as possible every year.

21:40That ended up looking really cute. I like the idea every year of like those I might even do the same next year because they were so cute. But I like the idea of like always having like little mini trees on a table or like as centerpieces, but doing them kind of like different every year. So you have this like, you know, you have this like little tradition, but it like sparks your creative brain to make them a little different every year. and then you get the activity of doing it. And when the kids are older, they'll do them with me. And hopefully that's something that they'll continue on to do.

22:12So we had the bartenders, the caterers did the food. I set up the martini tower. I used not real glasses because that was way too risky, but I found these like really amazing martini glasses that look very real, but they're plastic. I hate that, but whatever, I'll have them forever and I'll use them for everything. And they're actually up good for like, you know, we have a pool, so there shouldn't really ever be glass up there. So I'll use them as like pool glasses and shit. And so we set up a fire pit in the backyard, which is really cute. I have outdoor heaters, which I invested in a few years ago because we were spending money renting them for things.

22:55And I was like, we should just own them obviously so we had outdoor heaters I rented two extras so we had four because most of the party I mean the party's inside and outside and so basically like you know if you have someone helping you bartend and we had the mascot which is an amazing Cabernet from Napa had red gave us red wine that I'm fucking obsessed with so I was like really happy they don't really give booze ever. And I'm really happy to have it because it's just a magnificent bottle of red wine. And I'll tell you something, sometimes like a California red wine will make me feel really awful the next day.

23:34And I have had cobiest amounts of the mascot and have never felt bad the next day. We had a rosé from Chandon that I love. It's like my favorite sparkly. It's like so festive around the holidays. So yummy, yummy. We had gin martini with quattro gatti. We had an amazing Negroni from Quattro Gatti. I'm going to post these recipes on my sub stack because with the gin martini, we put barrancini olive oil in it and brine, but we used brine from Partana Casavoltrano olives. And that's where we make the olive oil. So it's actually really cute. I was looking at the cocktail and I was like, oh my God, these olives that are in this glass and the brine and the olive oils, like all from the same land and the same family, which makes you really happy.

24:24The Negroni, which is fantastic, had some aged balsamic from Flamingo Estate in it, which was delish. And then we had Skinny Margs from Cosamigos. Cosamigos makes a margarita mix that I love. So they have a margarita mix and they have a Paloma mix. So if you ever want to have like a mix, like a pre mix that is my go-to and everybody loves it. And then we always have an orange wine from Fallen Grape because it is absolutely delicious. My mom is opening a Fallen Grape like, I mean, multiple days a week in here. It's like, I'll see her just like opening a bottle and she'll like drink it for three days.

25:04It's really, really funny. She's a little wine head. so those were all delish so i think like here's the deal we obviously that scale and this is a brand party whatever we have bartenders and they help clean but we have had many successful parties where we just set up a bar so if you want to just set up a bar and i've talked about this before get a cooler get a yeti get any sort of cheap cooler if you like don't want to invest in a Yeti, although like ice will stay in a Yeti for like eight days. It's absolutely insane. Set it up next to like a little bar. We have tons of folding tables, but we have a bar built in our TV room that my parents built a million years ago.