Are you planning a graduation party at your home? Maybe you are planning a simple graduation buffet table and would like a few easy DIY ideas for decorations, along with how to set up your buffet table.
Well – I’ve got your back!
My daughter just graduated, and we had a simple graduation party at our house for friends and family. To keep cost down, I made a few of the graduation decorations and set up the graduation buffet table.
The graduation décor was super easy and very cheap to make. Here is a list (along with links) of what I created for the party:
- Graduation cap cake stand
- Graduation embroidery tassels
- Unique graduation centerpiece
- Graduation party activity – “most likely to…” picture frame
I decided to stick with the common black and gold graduation theme colors and added pops of her school colors (red and blue).
The buffet table was set up inside, as the weather was going to be questionable for the day. I followed my steps for creating a professional-looking buffet table. Check it out here. (You might want to bookmark it for future reference – hint, hint.)
Creating the graduation party buffet table
First, I laid down a black tablecloth that I had bought on clearance, as the foundation layer.

Next, I added height to the table. I used my DIY wooden craft crates from my Memorial Day buffet. Since I would be covering them, I wasn’t concerned about their color. I needed a little more height on the right side of the graduation buffet table, so also used a few game boxes.

Obviously, I didn’t want any of the boxes or crates to show, so I covered them with a few yards of black knit polyester fabric. This fabric doesn’t wrinkle and is very fluid. Not at all stiff. When I covered the items, I draped the fabric and created areas where it would pool nicely. You don’t want it to completely frame your boxes, as that will bring too much attention to them instead of what you will be putting on the table.


After I had the black fabric covering the crates and boxes, I added soft gold sheer fabric to create dimension and more visual interest to the table.


Can you see it coming together??
Once I had the gold fabric looking the way I wanted, I added my unique DIY graduation centerpiece, graduation cake plate, and dish holders.




The graduation buffet table was almost done!
Next, I added the food trays and placed the plates at the beginning of the buffet and the utensils and napkins at the end of the table.
The final step was to add food cards, so guests would easily know what was on each dish.

Didn’t the graduation party buffet table come together great! I did it all by myself, and now you see how easy it is for you to do too!
Check out the easy DIY projects used to decorate this tablescape:
- Graduation cap cake stand
- Graduation embroidery tassels
- Unique graduation centerpiece
- Graduation party activity – “most likely to…” picture frame