Sharing my outdoor dining essentials like melamine dinnerware, acrylic glasses, serving trays and much more! Perfect for dining outside in the warmer months!
Now that warmer weather is officially here, we’re trying to eat more meals outside. Especially since we aren’t going out to eat like we used to! Today I’m sharing some of my outdoor dining essentials along with some cute new pieces for the season!
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After we built the pool (almost five years ago), we started to enforce a no-glass policy around the pool. We haven’t always adhered to it 100% when it comes to drinks, but we’ve slowly built our outdoor dinnerware collections for dining outdoors.
Our Favorite Outdoor Dining Essentials
Following are our favorites types of items we like to use when dining outdoors.
- Melamine dinnerware. I prefer melamine over paper products because we can re-use them year after year. Not only that, with our Nebraska wind, we don’t have to worry about plates being blown away or lifted up while you’re trying to eat! Melamine has come a long way over the years, and so many look like ceramic pieces at a fraction of the price! If you’re looking for something fairly basic, this melamine dinnerware set serves four, comes in six colors, and the price is pretty great (with excellent reviews)!
- Acrylic glasses. We actually love our acrylic glasses so much, we sometimes even use them throughout the year while indoors! We never have to worry about them breaking and there are so many stylish options nowadays. We not only use traditional drinking glass styles, but also acrylic wine and margarita glasses!
- Food covers. If you stay away from eating outdoors because you hate the bugs, food covers work wonders while you’re setting up. It doesn’t solve the bug problem while you’re eating, but it helps protect your food in the interim! These natural incense sticks have excellent reviews for keeping bugs at bay in general. You can also try planting plants like lavender, marigolds, lemongrass, etc. near your outdoor dining space to also repel them!
- Serving trays. We use multiple serving trays a week during the summer months. They’re great transporting multiple items for your kitchen out to your dining or snack spot! I prefer trays with handles, and typically plastic or resin for ones out by the pool so I can easily wipe them down later. For more “formal” meals on the covered patio, I bring out my more decorative basket trays or other fun styles. We’ve had this affordable melamine tray for years and I use it just as much on our coffee table as I do for outdoor dining!
- Outdoor string lights. Is there anything more magical than dining outdoors under string lights? Thanks to the wind and violent summer storms here, we haven’t had much luck with ours in the past. But I think I’m really to give them a try again. They add such a fun ambiance to evening meals outdoors! If you don’t have anywhere to string them, add in some tabletop candles or lanterns (either LED or traditional flames)!
My Top Picks for Outdoor Dinnerware & Serving Pieces
I spent a few hours over the weekend going through some of the latest outdoor dining essentials and found so many cute options! Simply click any of the images below to learn more about each of the serving pieces shown.
Do you enjoy meals outside in the summer as much as we do?
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disclosure: some affiliate links used
Kate says
Not sure if I’m looking in the wrong place… but none of the pictures with links are showing for me.
Sarah says
Hi Kate! Sorry about that! That should all be showing towards the end of the post as images. If you click any of them it should open the link. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to load. If that doesn’t work, let me know and I can send you the links for any of the items you were interested in. Thanks!