Bridal Shower

My mom asked me to do a write up for the bridal shower. But I never even finished the write up for our Utah Trip- and sadly I don't think I'll ever get to it.

Well- I had the pleasure of working with Tiffany Mann, the Maid of Honor, on the Bridal Shower. We started planning many weeks in advance. The idea for the theme had a few influences.
We loved the idea of a tea party- and we considered a Mad Hatter approach to the cake, but decided against it (by the way, you should google images of mad hatter cakes- their adorable). Then, when I was at Burlington Coat Factory, I saw the most adorable sun hats and thought immediately of My Fair Lady.
So we had a black and white tea party with hats and we used pink accents.
Now that we had a theme, we had to come up with a plan.
We talked about the menu, which consisted of lots of 'high tea'-type items. Tiffany brought lots of beautiful classical music that we played quietly throughout the event. It added a very nice touch. We made cucumber sandwiches and a chicken salad sandwich.
We had fruits and vegetables, biscuits and jam, and of course, Tea. Mom made cinnamon tea, which was a hit, and we had lots of herbal teas. We also had hot chocolate and apple cider for the less adventurous of us, like me (but I never had a moment to have a cup of anything besides our pink lemonade).

Jen Mackay, a good friend of ours, made a beautiful cake for us, and it was delicious.

Tiffany had some very cute vases that we used as center pieces, but as the party list grew, we had to buy a couple more. We bought giant daisies in white and pink. I think the center pieces were my favorite part of decorations. Lora was placed at a special table in the middle, reserved for her and the mothers, though Jackie, her niece, enjoyed sitting there as well. This was the center piece from her table.

Before I get too far, I need to thank Eric. He was very gracious to do valet parking for us. Lots of people were amazed and we got many comments about it. Plus, BIG thanks to Bob Pettit for helping us 'borrow' tables from the church, we needed his truck and were grateful for his man-power as well.

The party was outside (as you can see) in our backyard. We spent the previous weekend getting it ready. There was lots to weed, rake, trim and get rid of. I was very proud of myself for getting mom to let go of some stuff. Our porch is really nice right now.
We covered the stairs to the deck with white sheets and put the presents there as they arrived. I really liked that touch. It was cool to see a large, mountain of presents- Eric was excited because most of it would be for him too.
On the tables, we laid out black cloths and sprinkled pink rose petals (no they weren't real). The plates and plastic ware were black, but the tea cups were white with silver trim. Mom and Aunt Karen both bought matching sets when they were in college, so we had 32 beautiful cups and saucers. But even that was not quite enough for the number of people that had RSVPed, but as can be assumed, not everyone actually came. We had about 30 people.
I was really proud of my idea for party favors. Lora really loves nail polish. This was one of the first things I learned about her. So we got different colors of pink nail polish and put them in little white bags. We had a couple of extras, so I have 3 new pinks.

We had a couple of games and prizes. Two of them were really simple; in "Get the Groom/Hunk in a Balloon" everyone got a balloon, and inside was a piece of paper with the name of a 'hunk', and one of them had Eric's name. Who ever popped the balloon with Eric's name won. It happened to be Tiffany.

The other game we played was called "How well does the Bride know the Groom?" We previously asked Eric a bunch of questions, some of them hard, and wrote down his answers. Lora was asked the same questions about Eric, and had to get the right answers. She did really well. There were arguments about how close she could be do get the point; but I think if she says 53 merit badges when the answer is 52, I say that counts.
It was getting chilly by the time we opened presents. Luckily we have lots of little blankets that we passed around to the people who were really cold.
A quick note about our guests: we had a good turnout with family and friends. I didn't have time to meet everybody, but I knew most of the friends. Mom was happy to meet Lora's cousins.
Grandma and most of the Read Aunts came (we missed Joanel, but she lives in Utah)and Madeleine came too. We were really glad to have Margo from the Sensenbaugh side (and we are idiots who forgot to send Tara an invitation- please forgive us!).
And of course, Karen flew in from New Jersey for the event. It was great to have her for 24-30 hours. She'll be back soon, of course, for the wedding.

It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed the planning and the setting up. I have been told that it was wonderful, and I am so glad. But I think I will stick to birthday parties, they are certainly less work. But seriously, it was a great experience and I am glad that I could do it for Lora.


Here are a couple more pictures from the day: