shower of style - part one

I'm a little slow on blogging but I knew this entry would be a lot!

My sister's bridal shower was last week and while I am certainly biased (I'm the Maid of Honor), it was really a spectacular shower.  Momzilla and I, along with my sister's future sisters-in-law and future mother-in-law, put a lot of hard work and effort into it and it certainly paid off.

Sister Bride is quite the fashionista.  She's always loved clothes and jewelry and the high life.  She currently works as a manager at a very well-known and high-end retail store.  She has more designer bags than I have underwear.  So it was only natural that we plan a shower around her love of fashion.

First, we ordered the invitations from Tickled Pink Design and I penned an original saying that catered to the theme.

Next, we ordered favors.  We wanted to give guests something that was relevant to shopping but was still useful.  So I searched high and low until I found a great deal on these adorable purse valets from Sincerely Ann Marie.  Since the party, we've received a lot of compliments on them!

The restaurant was already giving us a wishing well but I had something else in mind.  I envisioned a large "shopping bag" in which guests could throw their little gifts.   

I bought a presentation display board from Staples and covered it in brown mailing paper (also purchased at Staples).  Then I glued a twine-looking wire around the top of the board that I bought from Michaels.  And last but not least, Lyndsey's future sister-in-law used her nifty Cricut to cut out large letters to glue on the front of the board.  It wasn't perfect Bloomingdale font, but came out really cute!  Then we surrounded the presentation board around a hamper in which people could put their wishing well presents.

This was the final product:

For the centerpieces, we collected small to medium-sized black shopping bags from high-end retail stores like Sephora or Guess.  We then stuffed them with hot pink tissue paper and wrapped a tag around them that indicated table number.

Here's some of them lined up:

And then one of the most creative things we did for the party was the placecards.  People are still talking about them!

I am in no way a graphic designer but I took an image of an American Express credit card and played around with it in GIMP, a free photo editing program.  I found a font that looked similar to the fonts on credit cards and added everyone's names and table numbers to the credit card.  Then I printed, laminated and cut them to look like real cards.  We stuck them in mini shopping bags with hot pink paper and set them out on the table.

They came out really adorable!!

So not to overwhelm you with an extremely long entry (which I'm sure it already is), I will dedicate my next entry to revealing what sorts of games we played and just how cute everything looked at the shower.

Stay tuned!

shower post-mortem

Yesterday was my future sister-in-law's Bridal Shower and while she wasn't quite surprised, she did seem to have a great time. Everything turned out just the way we planned; the food was delicious, the games were entertaining, the centerpieces were beautiful and the bride was blushing!

So after organizing my first bridal shower, what did I learn?

• It takes a bridal party to plan a shower. The Mother of the Bride or the Maid of Honor would go crazy if she had no help from the bridal party. Between wrapping favors and managing the RSVPs, the entire bridal party remained involved. I keep reminding Momzilla that as much as she loves party planning, she won't be able to do it alone. She'll need to consult with the bridesmaids on advice, opinions and just plain old labor. And while my bridesmaids are all good friends, that isn't the case with every bridal party. Sidenote: Planning the shower may also give the girls a chance to bond before the big day.
• Sweat the small stuff. While you shouldn't agonize over the tiniest detail, it's important to keep organized because there are so many little things involved with a shower. Parties in general require attention to detail but bridal and baby showers tend to follow a "schedule" of serving food, playing games and opening presents. We had to remember a poem for the Wishing Well, garbage bag for the wrapping paper and pens for the games. Good thing there were so many of us or else I'm sure we would have forgotten something!
• Wear a watch. I'm sure most bridal showers experience the same "mistakes" of spending too much time on silly things and not enough time on the important things. In retrospect, we waited too long to bring the bride to the party (partly my fault!) and we didn't give ourselves the time we needed to open her presents. And while most guests hate sitting through hours of unwrapping, it's nice to be able to spend the time thanking each guest after opening the present. Otherwise, you're being rushed through the entire thing!
• Bring sexy back! Okay, maybe this doesn't apply to ALL showers but I was certainly surprised by the fun reaction to all the lingerie she got. We had hung up a clothesline and pinned on lots of sexy panties for her to keep; we even displayed one of her fiance's boxer shorts! And although I was a little nervous about my future family's reaction, I had no need to be. They played right along and even gave a couple of naughty contributions themselves (one of her grandmother's friend's gave her a sexy nurse's uniform!).
  
  

I'm sure there are lots of other lessons I learned but for the sake of this entry, I decided to keep it short. In the next one, I'll show all the creative things we made for the shower in case you want some inspiration.

In the meantime, do you have any other thoughts or advice for planning a shower? I have to plan at least two more next year so any words of wisdom would be appreciated!