Amy's Bridal Shower

My friend Amy is getting married in August, and she asked her three best friends to be in her bridal party. Her friend Billy lives out of the country, so the other maid of honor, Alyson, and I took it upon ourselves to throw Amy a bridal shower, with lots of help from her family. We decided to have it at her house, and asked her mom to take her out and distract her while a few of us decorated the backyard for the shower. What ensued was something "very Pinterest-worthy"... as we were told by a few people at the shower!




Alyson is the queen of DIY and made all of the decorations herself! With her crafting skills and my kitchen skills, we threw a heck of a party! We went with a wine & cheese theme, and a teal/pink/gold color scheme. She spray painted wine and beer bottles white and dipped the bottoms in gold glitter, then we tossed some pink peonies in them. She also made a bride-to-be banner out of burlap and paint, and made a wooden A & E sign in the color scheme, with the date of their wedding on it. (That's now sitting on Amy and Eric's mantel!)








As far as food goes, we opted for light fare since it was outside mid-afternoon on a warm spring day. Alyson made a southwest-inspired quinoa salad and a watermelon mojito salad. I picked up a few different cheeses, some prosciutto, soppressata and crackers, and made caprese skewers, triple lemon cupcakes for dessert, along with nutella brownie muffins, and I purchased some macarons from a local French bakery. We also had some fruit and vegetables out with hummus. Her parents brought the wine - an assortment of reds and whites, though I think most of the guests stuck with white, myself included. Alyson also made a delicious ginger mint punch that didn't last long!






For favors, Alyson made oatmeal lavender bars of soap with a little wrapper that read "From Amy's shower to yours!" (Like I said, she is the queen of DIY!) For the game prizes we gave out small bottles of wine that she decorated with burlap and ribbon to fit the color scheme. When I was out shopping for shower supplies, I came across fun cutouts of glasses, lips, and crowns that Alyson and I glued to long skewers to use as photo booth props! We used my polaroid camera to snap silly photos of each of the guests, and then they used washi tape to stick them onto a colorful page and write a piece of advice for the bride. We put all of those pages, along with some other fun photos snapped throughout the party, into a small scrapbook for Amy. Alyson glued the shower invitation onto the front of the scrapbook, and now Amy has a tangible reminder of the special party we threw just for her!






This is the second bridal shower I've thrown (also the second wedding I've been in!) and it was so much fun to plan! I was a novice for the first shower I co-hosted, but for this one I had some experience under my belt, and lots of help. Alyson and I started planning months ago and it was difficult not mentioning any part of the process here, because I know Amy reads the blog... but now that the shower has happened, I'm excited to share the details here. Alyson and I had a private pinterest board where we exchanged ideas about what to do/make. It was fun putting our own little twist on everything. And I'm not ashamed to say that I definitely used the shower as an excuse to buy that polaroid camera ;) The shower was supposed to be a surprise, but Amy figured it all out the week beforehand. Oh well! It was still a blast for everyone that came, and we couldn't have asked for more cooperative weather. Just an awesome day all around!