The Perfect Outdoor Movie Night

Quarantine this spring really got us into outdoor movie nights as a way to feel like we were doing something festive and exciting while staying in our own backyard. Now that we’re getting out and about a little more, it’s become a great way to see a few friends this fall-it’s outdoors, people can socially distance, and we’ve added in some fire pit action for adults to hang around and chat and kids to make s’mores.

My favorite way to do the outdoor movie night is to keep it simple-we bought this projector and we put it on a table or step ladder to get it to the right height. Then we hang a sheet from the side of our house for a screen (I clip it onto the edge of gutters using office binder clips). We turn our pool furniture around so that it’s facing the screen and then I put all of our bean bag chairs from the boat and cozy kids chairs (how to do we have so many of these??) on the ground in front of that, along with lots of blankets and pillows.

So many people have come up with really fun and creative ways to do the set-up. Here are some ideas below. My next goal is to figure out how to put up string lights around our pool area in a way that I can either leave them up or have a system that allows me take them up and down easily.

Annie Selke uses outdoor rugs as bases for seating which is so smart!

I love Emily Henderson’s string lights-I happen to own very similar ones and want to string them up just like this! I also love her tent to entertain little ones who may not have the attention span for a whole movie. Thinking that I should get out our old Pottery Barn play tent and try it next time.

I love the use of these chairs in this Sugar and Cloth version. It just goes to show that you can pop any furniture outside and it looks cute and might be more functional for all of us adults who can’t comfortably lounge around on the ground for two hours without worrying about hurting our backs…I know, I know-I’m such a softy these days!

Treats:

Now to the best part of any movie night-the snacks! We’ve done individual bags of popcorn and candy for treats, which is super easy but always a hit. This weekend, I’m thinking about taking it up a notch and doing either a s’mores bar or making apple cider floats and these festive popcorn treats.

How amazing do these Apple Cider Floats from Lemon Stripes look!

You can’t go wrong with s’mores like they put together on Spoonful of Easy!

If you don’t have a fire pit, this portable s’mores bar from Etsy has space for sterno cans built in!

Don’t these look so festive? I love that What’s Gaby Cooking has made them with popcorn so that they feel so on theme for a movie night.

And these Slutty Brownies (hahaha) from What”s Gaby Cooking just looked too amazing to pass up.

Movie Ideas

We’ve enjoyed showing the girls the classic movies that we grew up—some of our favorites include A League of Their Own, Troop Beverly Hills, Mrs. Doubtfire, Back to the Future and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (this one had a lot more swear words that I remembered!). We’ve also watched Hamilton outside and loved it.

Check out Camille Style’s Troop Beverly Hills inspired movie night

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