There are not many event planners who could come up with the party theme of “alien balloon world,” let alone be able to execute it in a downtown Los Angeles art gallery. But then again, most event planners aren’t Rebecca Gardener, the SCAD-educated entertainer known for her campy eccentricity that pushes the boundary of “in good taste” yet never breaks it. Exhibit A: that aforementioned alien balloon world party, where Gardener created an extraterrestrial extravaganza featuring large-scale helium aliens complete with tentacles, spikes, and giant about-to-eat-you mouths courtesy of artist Jason Hackenwerth.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that this week, Rizzoli publishes an ode to Gardner’s work in the new book A Screaming Blast: Exceptional Entertaining. Client Sofia Coppola wrote the intro: “My dream would be to have Rebecca Gardner in charge of the party committee of my life,” she says. “With an eye for detail, the elegance of a hostess from a bygone era, and always up for some mischievous fun, Rebecca knows how to do it.”
In addition to that alien balloon world, colorful images of the retro 50th birthday party Gardener organized for Coppola—complete with pink ruffled tablecloths, Champagne buckets, peonies, and silver baskets of lychees—unfurl across the pink-hued pages. (“I thought that it would be charming to design a party for her that felt sort of 1980s, Tina Barney and Watch Hill,” Gardener tells Vogue of the moodboard for the Marie Antoinette director’s milestone.) Flip a few pages further, and you’ll find a “traveling circus” party with a Barnum & Bailey caravan from the early 1900s, as well as a country wedding with a mechanical bull in the Cumberland Gap. “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth over-doing,” Gardener says of her hosting style. “Go big or go home. Maybe that is because I’m a hairspray Texan.”
The book provides both visual and practical inspiration. In a chapter called “Anatomy of a Party,” Gardener walks the reader through her thought process for everything from invitations (“‘black tie optional’ is not a clear option”) to menu (“avoid haute cuisine”). An index at the back, meanwhile, lists her favorite vendors across the United States.
Below, a look inside the many festive fêtes of A Screaming Blast.
