Shower Power
This past weekend was the bridal shower for my Cousin Ben’s fiancée, Katie, and I must say it went off without a hitch. Thank goodness. I think it was the first party I’ve planned/thrown where I wasn’t running around like a chicken with my head cut off before, during and after, which leads me to believe that maybe I’m getting better at this kind of stuff. My Cousin Brittany and Aunt Linda both did so much for this shower and helped me prepare almost everything, from painting food stands to decorating tables to baking cupcakes until 2 am. (It would be very uncharacteristic of me to not stay up crazy late the night before an event.)
(The table runners were just strips of burlap and the placemats were green cardstock squares.)
The preparation has been going on for well over a month, at least in my brain. Last weekend, my lovely husband built wooden food stands for me and I painted tree branches that would be center pieces, which I stole from the burn pile at my dad’s house. I wanted to keep the decorations calm, cool and outdoorsy to counter the heat that we knew we would have in the garage hall (not air conditioned) so I chose a natural color palette with light greens, browns, beiges and whites with foods to compliment that.
On the gift table, we placed two branches in clear vases with sand and hung small cards on them for the guests to write wishes or advice for the bride to be.
We couldn’t forget cheesy fun bridal shower games, which included large amounts of gum chewing and some toilets paper dress design. Katie had a little trouble stuffing her mouth so full and you can see from the photos that she was a little grossed out by the huge glob of gum that was in her mouth. The purpose of the game was to see how well she knew her groom to be and for each question she answered incorrectly she had to put a new piece of gum in her mouth.
Pinky, who will be the flower girl in the August wedding, had to take a little break to run outside and chew her own gum in private. I guess the pressure of the crowd was just too much for her to handle. Yeah right.
The wedding dress game was pretty funny too. Technically, the point is to split into teams and dress up one person on the team with toilet paper, trying to emulate the look of a bridal gown. The photo on the left shows what Pinky thought of her dress. Apparently, she wasn’t a fan. The other photos are Katie’s good friend from college looking a little scared and my grandmother, who donned a mini dress w/ train, engagement ring, hair bow, necklace w/ love knot, and a braided garter.
Lastly, it was time to open her gifts and Katie ever so delicately tore into each one, being sure not to break any ribbons.
