Morning!

I finally had some time over the weekend to go through all the pictures from my bridal shower.

My wonderful mom, maid of honor, and bridesmaids threw me the most special day back in June. I know from experience that bridal showers are a lot of work to plan, and I am so appreciative of all the time they put in to making sure the day was full of personal touches and perfect for me.

The shower was held at the Tuscan Kitchen in Burlington. That part was a surprise. I didn’t want a surprise shower (let’s be honest, I’d probably show up wearing gym clothes), but my mom really wanted there to be a surprise element to the day, so I agreed to having the location be the unknown detail.

Tim was in charge of driving me there in the morning. It was kind of funny because as we walked in, everyone still yelled surprise even though I clearly knew where we were the second we pulled in to the parking lot. A couple people yelled yay, and my Auntie Paula started an “A-the-na” chant. Obviously.

I don’t know why, but I was nervous the week leading up to my shower, and I was especially anxious the morning of. All that attention solely on me… eek! It’s weird because I have absolutely no problem public speaking or giving presentations at work, I’m in the center of attention when I’m up in front of the classes I teach at the gym, and I put my life out there through this blog. When you are the center of attention at your bridal shower though, it’s really all about you! I was shaky walking in, but once I made my rounds and had a glass of sangria in my hand, I definitely calmed down a bit.

We spent a little time mingling and taking pictures with everyone before Tim, my dad, and my future father in law left to grab lunch together while us ladies did our thing.

What an amazing feeling to have so many of your favorite people in the same room. It got me really excited for our wedding day!

Soon it was time for lunch. The restaurant set up the food buffet style, and everything was delicious. My parents spent a lot of time trying to pick out the perfect menu for me, and I received many compliments about how good the food was. I just wish I ate more food that day! I was too nervous to open my presents that I really didn’t eat as much as I normally would have. Please someone make sure I actually eat on my wedding day, mmkay?

There was also a huge table of desserts and cake. Got lots of smiles about that too!

Before I knew it, it was time to open gifts! Aside from the food and the venue, the other thing I’ve received a lot of compliments on since the shower was how efficient my assembly line of bridesmaids was. I had a huge pile of gifts, so people thought it would take forever, but the girls are seriously pros by now!

Bridget, Allison, and Shannon tag teamed getting my cards open, presents as ready as possible for me to open, and gifts passed down the line. I was happy to have Slesh and Trina on either side of me. Slesh helped me with the more difficult gifts to open, and Trina kept me laughing and took notes on who gave me what. Trina would then pass the gifts off to Katie and Lexa who carried them away, and Erica and Layla (my flower girl) tackled trash duty and making my bouquet out of all the bows. Seriously nobody does this as well as Erica does!

While I was opening my gifts, my bridesmaids organized a little game of bingo for everyone to play. Basically everyone filled out a bingo sheet with different gift items they thought I might open. If they got five in a row, they won bingo, and my sister brought them a little prize bottle of olive oil to take home. I thought that was the cutest touch! Some of the other cute touches throughout the day were the recipes for happiness box where everyone wrote us little note cards of advice for our marriage, the frames of pictures displayed around the room (although some of those were quite mortifying), the guest book, balloons, the floral centerpieces (Shannon put them together herself!), and more.

Everyone also brought us the nicest gifts. We got such beautiful stuff, and our kitchen is STOCKED now. It’s thrilling, and I am overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity and thoughtfulness. There were some really creative non registry gifts too! Our friend Ashley from the gym had a painting made of the lighthouse where Tim and I got engaged, our friend Jill got us a really cute personalized cutting board, and Shannon made me a homemade apron. My bridesmaids put together a whole basket of goodies including wine/beer to drink on our “firsts” (Erica was on poem duty again!), toasting glasses for our wedding day, and a framed map of New England with pictures of Tim and I in all the places we’ve visited. New Hampshire was left blank for a wedding photo!

Slesh also organized a recipe collection and had all the guests each submit their favorite recipe before the bridal shower. She put together a whole recipe book called Recipes with Love for us, and we absolutely love it! We’ve already made a few things from it.

After the gifts were done, there was one more game to play. Bridget put together a He Said, She Said game to see how well each guest knew Tim and me. I had to stand up and announce which statements on the game were things I said and which were things Tim said. People started to head out a bit after that, but not before taking a potted herb of their choice for a favor! LOVED that so much.

By this time, Tim and our dads had returned from their lunch, so they loaded up three cars full of gifts while a bunch of us took advantage of the beautiful weather for some more outdoor pictures.

I seriously had the best day, and I cannot thank my parents and bridal party enough for making it so awesome! You guys are the best.

Readers, let’s chat! Have you thrown a bridal shower before? What were some of the ways you made it special for the bride? If you’ve had your own shower before, what was your favorite part about it? 

Reliving my bridal shower through this post just got me SUPER EXCITED for my bachelorette party… we leave on Friday of this week! YAY!