At the end of April, I helped throw my best friend’s bridal shower.

On the Friday before the shower, I drove with Slesh to her parents’ house in Connecticut. Her sister, niece, and our friend Erica met us there. Her parents were very gracious and had a delicious spread of food waiting for us when we arrived. I had a lot of fun just hanging out while drinking wine and catching up with Slesh’s family. It was exactly the kind of low-key night I needed and was craving.

In the morning, we woke up bright and early to get ready and set up for Slesh’s special day. The shower was held at a venue called Tashua Knolls. The room we had the shower in was very pretty, bright, and open, and Slesh’s mom and sister did a wonderful job with all the venue details.

Aren’t the colors and flowers so pretty? Slesh’s sister put these centerpieces together herself!

The shower wasn’t a surprise, but we had Will walk Slesh in anyways.

As everyone began to arrive, guests mingled while helping themselves to mimosas from the mimosa fountain.

Since we weren’t playing any shower games, the bridal party decided to set up a few different things around the room for people to look at and fill out instead. Aside from the larger frames below, each table had a picture of Slesh and Will and a picture of Slesh from her younger years.

People got a kick out of looking at pictures like these!

We also set up a recipe box for guests to drop their favorite recipes in. On the back of the shower invitations, we included this text: “Caitlin and Will are ready to say ‘I do.’ They’ve got love, but they need to eat too! Enclosed is a card to fill out your favorite recipe.” I love this idea, and now Slesh and Will can have a solid recipe collection for the future.

Next to the recipes was a spot for guests to display their own wedding albums so that we could enjoy viewing the different styles across generations! I unfortunately didn’t snap a picture of this table, but some of the old school pictures were really cool to see.

Next was the “Meet the Maids” table. I asked each member of the bridal party to do  a little write-up of how long they’ve known Slesh, where they met, and what their favorite memories together are. I then framed the write-ups in these pretty teal shadow frames and included a  picture of each of us as well.

It took me forever to decide on just one picture, but here’s a close-up of the one I ended up choosing. That’s Slesh and me from junior year of college!

Finally, the last “station” we set up was one where guests could write some words of wisdom and fun date night ideas for Slesh and Will to read through after the shower was over.

After about 45 minutes of catching up, everyone was ready to eat. We served brunch, but I think the real highlight was the make your own sundae table for dessert!

Slesh was nervous for gift opening, but she did a great job! We had a really effective assembly line too: Ashley was in charge of bringing the presents over, Mary helped Slesh open them, I carried and lifted all the boxes to another spot to get them out of the way, and Erica was on trash and paper plate bouquet duty.

I prayed the whole time I wouldn’t drop a gift. Success!

The bridal party gave Slesh a wine themed gift. We chipped in to buy Slesh and Will the crystal wine glasses that were on their registry, but we also found a cute basket that matched Slesh’s wedding colors so we could fill the basket with other fun wine things as well.

We included chocolates, cocktail napkins, a framed copy of the shower invitation, and four bottles of wine. We labeled each of the bottles of wine with a “first.” We used “to drink before your honeymoon,” “to drink on your first Valentine’s Day as a married couple,” “to drink the first night in your first home,” and “to drink after your first fight as a married couple.” We attached little poems to each of them too.

Finally, we also included one final poem that announced what we are planning to do for the bachelorette party this coming weekend (wine tour in New York!), and we made Slesh read it out loud.

After the gifts, we made Slesh hold up her bouquet of bows. She better save that for the rehearsal dinner when we practice walking down the aisle!

 

We also took advantage of the sun that came out for a few outdoor photo ops:

On the way out, everyone took home two favors: white chocolate M&Ms in a candy tin and homemade pepper sticks made from Slesh’s grandmother’s recipe. Yum to both!

The day was a big success and a wonderful way to start the countdown to the BIG DAY which is coming up so soon. But first, the bachelorette party! We’ll be heading to NYC this coming weekend. I can’t wait!

–Let’s chat–
Have you ever been involved with hosting and/or planning a bridal shower before? What unique touches did you incorporate into it? Did you play any games? Any cute theme gift ideas you can share? Does anyone have any fun bachelorette games or ideas you can suggest for this weekend?

I would love to hear what you guys have done before!