Shopping With Bronson Van Wyck: Accessories for Outdoor Entertaining

So Bronson van Wyck, an event planner with experience accessorizing a wide range of entertainment — from Sean Combs’s 40th birthday party to events for royalty — went shopping for a few basic updates. Mr. van Wyck, 40, began his career in the State Department as a protocol aide to Ambassador Pamela Harriman, and he has strong ideas about what is appropriate in any given setting. For a casual outdoor party, he favors things that “straddle formal and informal,” he said. “Either a formal item done in a relaxed way or a relaxed item done in a way that elevates its level of chic.”

He began his search in SoHo, at Pearl River, a store with an entire section devoted to paper lanterns, because “a big challenge of entertaining outdoors is lighting,” he said. (Candles are nice, he agreed, but they blow out too easily.) “Lanterns give you light from above in a nice way, but you can also pile them on the ground,” he said, pulling out and assembling several brightly colored round ones to demonstrate. “I did that once with about 100 of these, and it looked really magical.”

A couple of blocks away, at C. Wonder, Mr. van Wyck found a lobster-shaped bottle opener that he insisted was “the primo example of a functional object that contributes to an atmosphere: it is fun and it says summer.” He also picked out some colorful striped straws. “They’re festive,” he said. “Plus, when you’re serving iced drinks, it’s nice to have something to stir your drink with.”

To balance out all the brightly colored elements, Mr. van Wyck picked out a Lenox rattan ice bucket. “The rattan is more of a rustic material,” he said. “But it still has a level of refinement and goes well with just about anything.” But Kim Seybert’s Chinoiserie picnic basket with four place settings — complete with utensils, glassware, napkins, a matching blanket and a bottle opener — was his choice for the simplest outdoor entertaining solution. “Everybody needs a look,” he said. “This is an instant look. It’s a party in a box.”

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