Something I’ve wanted to do ever since I moved into my place with a big rooftop patio is host an outdoor movie night up there. It only took 5 years but I made it happen!

Here was the invite I designed. I kept the guest list pretty small because I wanted everyone to have a cozy seat. It also happened to be a musically inclined guest list so I thought it would be fun to rewind a bit with one of my favourites, Almost Famous. So many great actors that I love. I totally forgot that Zooey Deschanel played William’s older sister.

Not sure what to watch on your movie night? Why not use a streaming service like Netflix to find something that all your guests can enjoy. I love streaming, however, it is important to take extra precautions to keep yourself safe online! One of my friends has recently recommended that I upgrade to a VPN so that I can benefit from a faster and more secure service. If you are a frequent streamer, looking for ways to improve your security and loading speeds, take a look at this VPN guide from websafetyadvice.com.

I created a comfy floor seating area using a big fabulous velvet-like bed cover I found on a thrifting hunt awhile back and then got a bunch of colourful big pillows from Homesense and gathered up a bunch of blankets. You can tell what my favourite colours are because everything I pulled together happens to match – lots of pink/orange/green/mustard. The patio plants added lots of colour and looked great. And of course what’s an outdoor movie night without a string of lights? These are from Target. Pick them up while they’re in season or else they’re impossible to find. A little side note – When I’ve attended outdoor movies in the past, companies like JW Craft Portable Restrooms normally come and provide the toilets. However, due to the fact this was in my apartment block, we could just walk down to my toilet if needed to. If you wanted to do this on a bigger scale, a portable toilet might be your best option though!

Here’s a great panoramic of the set up. I bought an affordable portable photo stand and I happen to have some photo backdrops from work but you could just drape a white sheet as well. And that view! not bad. I wanted to move away from the traditional black/white/red movie theme and instead use lots of bright summer colours.

It was a successful & fun movie night with friends on a beautiful summer night.I’ll leave you with my favourite scene from the movie. Every time I hear this song I think of this scene. So good!

It was so successful that we’re thinking of building a home cinema inside our home so that we can enjoy movie nights like this even in the winter! We have a spare room that we have just been throwing junk into so it would be nice to turn it into a space that we can enjoy for many years to come. To get a home cinema we need to think about how the right subwoofer needs to be picked and what type of TV we will need for the cinema experience to be authentic. Although right now it’s just a dream hopefully we can save and build the ultimate indoor cinema soon!