ONE MORE MOTHER'S DAY REMINDER! 🌸

A couple more days to get your mother's day plans in order 😘

May 09, 2025

DON’T FORGET MOTHER’S DAY IS THIS SUNDAY!

Our Mom’s birthday is usually around the same time as Mother’s Day, so we typically have a cross-over birthday party/Mother’s Day brunch or spend the weekend together at our cottage. This year, we are changing things up with a fun day of baseball at Comerica Park, watching the Tigers take on the Texas Rangers. And since it’s a big birthday for her 😏, we will be ringing in this milestone on our family trip to Sardinia and Corsica!

scenes from last year’s mother’s/bday extravaganza

Even though we are skipping the usual festivities this year (we don’t call our Mom “Queen Bee” for nothin’), celebrating Moms with a nice brunch is a classic and forever lovely way to show her how much you appreciate her! We’ve updated our Mother’s Day Brunch Guide from last year with a new dessert and flower arrangement tips to make this Sunday even more special. And if you need some last-minute gift inspo, check out our 2025 Mother’s Day picks at the end of the Digest (shout out to the woman-owned businesses!)

Can’t go wrong with a little olive and chips spread, cheese board, fruit salad:)

BRUNCH AT HOME: THE MENU

You can be as creative as you like with a brunch menu… traditional breakfast foods, light lunch items, a smorgasbord of apps, a sit-down plated meal, or all of the above. It doesn’t need to be complicated to be impressive. For a daytime/brunch event, we like to serve everything family-style:)

We love a little sandwich, frittata, or light pasta that can be personalized to your guests’ liking. We recreated our favorite “Summer Sandwich” from Palate Pleasers (RIP- we used to walk 6 miles for this sandwich back in the day) portioned so that you can easily make one giant sandwich cut up into individual servings. This sandwich is best served with a “Hugerol” spritz! Our mom loves a Hugo Spritz, we love an Aperol Spritz….then one day we decided to combine the two and never looked back!

Our mom loves meringue and pavlovas, so with her as a muse, our new Mother’s Day featured dessert is mini pavlovas with a springy strawberry rhubarb topping, fresh whipped cream, and strawberries.

A pavlova is a light and airy meringue-based dessert typically topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit. Australia and New Zealand both claim to have invented the pavlova in the 1920s, after being inspired by the graceful elegance of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who toured the region during that time.

GO TO RECIPE

Meringue seems daunting to make, but if you follow the steps closely, it is very simple (and delicious). I love topping the pavlovas with fresh whipped cream, strawberry rhubarb topping, and adding some fresh strawberries on top. You can halve this recipe if you only want to make it for four!

For more inspiration for your menu, check out some of our favorite Mother’s Day recipes!

MOTHER'S DAY RECIPES

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BEAUTIFUL TABLESCAPE AND FLOWER ARRANGEMENTS

A perfect menu is even more enjoyable when served on a well-designed, fun table setting. In our house, more is more when it comes to the table. We start with a basic white tablecloth and layer from there - colorful plates and water glasses, mini vases of flowers (just make sure they aren’t too big and block the view across the table), handwritten name cards, table runners, menus (if you want to be fancy), candlesticks, votives, fresh fruit (yes!), basically anything you already have + fresh flowers.

Speaking of fresh flowers, we love walking into a home and seeing a beautiful arrangement or arrangements decorating the space. While you can buy pre-made bouquets, making your own (or deconstructing a grocery store one) is a fun way to lean into your creativity. While this may seem intimidating (and pricy), it doesn’t need to be!

Here are some of our additional thoughts and tips on flower arrangements:

Go to Trader Joe’s for your flowers! While it also has a million other things we love, Trader Joe’s is our favorite place to buy flowers. It’s great for an everyday arrangement, or when you want to put something grand together and don’t have time or budget to go to a florist.
When putting together our own arrangement, we like to incorporate different types of flowers rather than sticking to one variety. A bouquet with flowers of varying types, height, shape, texture, and color will make the arrangement all the more professional and expensive-looking. Some of our favorites are:
1. Hydrangeas are always a classy staple
2. Tulips (when in season) add a beautiful and bright fresh pop of color
3. Ranunculuses give a romantic girl-garden vibe, we love
4. Anemones are great to mix with other flowers due to their delicacy and colorful centers
5. And of course, sunflowers, because they always make us smile
Use filler flowers and flowers that take up a lot of space within the arrangement
1. Eucalyptus, baby’s breath, blue thistle flower, hydrangeas (bulbous shape fills in gaps), yellow goldenrod, dahlia, etc.

Deconstruct pre-made store-bought bouquets, mixing and matching with flowers you like, to create your own custom arrangement. You can also make multiple smaller arrangements out of a single bouquet and put them in vases throughout your entertaining area.
Find inspiration everywhere! A hike in nature (we love the colors and randomness of wildflowers) or a beautiful hotel (we were recently inspired by the skinny vases of fresh flowers placed throughout Hotel Kämp in Helsinki). Anything you see in your environment can get your creative juices flowing! Remember to take a pic :)

For more inspo check out our Mother’s Day Dinner Party Pinterest board.

Pro tip: We like to set the table the night before. It’s also a perfect job for the host who’s not doing all the cooking (aka our Dad, who really gets into it).

SET THE VIBE WITH GOOD TUNES

Music is always the finishing touch that complements a get-together. My mom is a stickler to the rule that the songs should have the same genre and flow (this isn’t an early 2000s mix CD). So we like to use a specific “artist radio” on Spotify instead of playlists. We love Louis Prima Radio for a daytime party. Special mention to Angus & Julia Stone, Van Morrison, and Leon Bridges radios.