Picnics are a great setting for intimate conversation and casual dining. It’s dinner without table, chairs, and sometimes silverware. Use your imagination to create a fun-filled picnic your sweetheart is bound to enjoy… Or just use our ideas!

Outdoor Picnics

• Surrounding scenery sets the mood for outdoor picnics. Use your environment to inspire your meal.
• Have a seafood picnic on the beach or on a boat
• Make tailgate-style food then have a picnic in the bed of a truck
• Have a picnic on a playground and bring your favorite foods you ate as a kid
• Decorate your backyard to reflect a certain culture, such as France, Italy, China, or the Caribbean and then create your menu around that
• Go to another country or state just to have a picnic (guaranteed to be memorable!)
• Have a star-gazing picnic with hot chocolate and star-shaped cookies

Indoor Picnics

Locations may be limited with indoor picnics, but with the right ambiance, any room can be transformed into a romantic and intimate setting.

• Have a picnic in a fort you’ve made from furniture and blankets
• Make a mountain theme by filling the room with the scent of pine, lining the floor with fallen leaves, and hanging glow in the dark stars
• Play music in the background that reflects the theme of your picnic – then ask for a slow dance during the meal
• Grab a DVD that plays scenery of the beach, mountains, or a fireplace
• Married couples: have a picnic-in-bed
• Decorate your living room to look Moroccan and have a picnic on silky pillows and a festive rug

Themed Picnics

Fruit
There are a few options for the fruit picnic:

• Go to a pick-your-own fruit farm and then bask in your selections.
• Go to a farmer’s market and sample local and organic produce.
• Visit your favorite grocery store and pick out those odd imports that you’ve never tried before. Most grocery stores have a reference book somewhere on the floor that describes the different fruits and how to prepare them.

Cheese
Bacteria party! With so many different types of cheeses, how can you not be curious? Avoid cheddar and jack this time around and go straight for the imports.

This type of picnic can get expensive, but it’s definitely worth trying. Compliment with fruit and crackers.

Dessert
This picnic is best after a light dinner. Travel to a local bakery and grab some of their sugary treats, ordering a sample size of each item. (In other words, the two of you should split a cookie instead of having one cookie each.) Or if you feel ambitious, bake things yourselves and add them to the basket.

Be sure to have something mixed nuts or milk on hand to balance out the sweetness.

Three Fun Picnic Ideas

The Morning Picnic
Why wait until sunset? Pack a light breakfast and hit the local park. What better way to start a long day then with your sweetheart? Grab smoothies and a few bagels, or homemade bread with a variety of fruit butters.

Chocolate and Wine Picnic
The experience of pairing foods and chocolate with wine can be a fun date. Search online for pairings, or you can buy a bottle of wine and a bunch of chocolates and take notes on what mixes and what doesn’t.

If you’re not of legal drinking age or you just don’t like to drink, turn it into a foreign chocolate tasting picnic. Pick up single-origin chocolates from around the world and see which countries create your favorite.

Halloween Picnic
Dress up in your costumes and sit down to a spooky picnic. Decorate with jack-o-lanterns and spider webs. Play a Halloween sound-effect CD in the background while having stew and bread, or go to a specialty store to find Halloween shaped pasta and cookies.

You can do this kind of theme with any holiday. How about a St. Patrick’s’ Day picnic with all your food dyed green? Or what about having a Halfway-to-Christmas picnic? There is no need to wait until the holiday actually arrives! Look for strange and fun holidays to celebrate.