In my previous post, I covered how we built an outdoor structure for less than $250. Here we are 3 weeks post her bridal shower, and it’s still standing strong in my yard! Maybe one day I’ll get around to taking it down…
I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to design the layout of her shower. I had so many ideas in my head, thoughts of balloon arches and floral backdrops and custom cocktails and rose-filled ice cubes….it was a lot, so I wrote it all down and narrowed my ideas down.
From the beginning of planning, I had always wanted to use vintage dishes, and not the basic plain dishes provided by a catering department. I loved the look of different style and colored plates, as I felt like it complimented my “whimsical beautiful garden party” theme. I went back to Craigslist and FB Marketplace to and began searching “vintage plates,” “vintage dinner plates,” “china plates,” “dinner plates,” “antique china,” and any other combination of those words, and slowly began collecting plates over the course of 6 months. My mom and I also kept our eyes open at local consignment and antique shops, and even found some great plates at Home Goods. Come shower time, I had a total of 55 plates, and if I needed more I was going to use my own dinner plates. I found two large sets (one with 17 and one with 19), so those helped guide the overall color-scheme and style of the rest of the plates. Going into this, my plan was to buy whatever plates I could, and then re-sell them online after the shower, but I’m obsessed with all of them and can’t seem to part with them!
Once I had the plates figured out, the rest of my design kind of fell into place. I knew I wanted the plates to be the focal point, so the colors for everything else – menu cards, napkins, floral arrangements – it would all be pretty neutral. I pictured greens, whites, touches of gold and silver, very simple but elegant.
I hired a local catering company, and was able to add in the linens, silverware, drinking glasses, tables and white garden chairs into my booking. After finalizing the menu, I set out to find menu templates on Etsy, and after messaging back and forth with Rand S. Creation, they created matching customized templates for the main menu, bar, and dessert station. The templates were perfect – simple and romantic – and the shop was great to work with! After a fiasco with my own printer, I had the cards printed at Staples for around $20.
My mother took on the HUGE responsibility of baking all the desserts, and spent 3 full days with my Aunt Cathi getting them done. They made at least 240 TOTAL desserts…..and we had one too many Espresso martinis the last night to celebrate this feat! But it was worth it, because the desserts were perfect, and truly were beautiful.
Desserts were handled – so next item on my list was the bar. Here, I took advantage of a few things: the summer day, our pool area, the outdoor bar my dad built 2 summers ago, and my husband’s kindness…..and voila – a fully “staffed” outdoor bar. It was very entertaining to see my husband sit behind the bar during the party, playing bartender and pouring cocktails for so many ladies! We purchased plastic cocktail glasses, cocktail napkins, 12 bottles of wine, 4 bottles of champagne, and somehow still had to run to the liquor store for more about 1/2 way through the day. Lesson learned – always buy more than what you think you’ll need!
As the shower was getting closer, I ordered the last few items on my list – flowers, backdrop supplies, and favors for the guests. I’ve followed Flowers By Gallon E&I on Instagram for years, and knew that I’d use them for the shower. I can’t say enough great things about them, and would highly recommend them to anyone looking to order flowers in bulk. I got 40 stems of fresh white hydrangeas for $60, and let me tell you, they were stunning! They came individually wrapped with water packs on each stem, were very full, and lasted for 6 days before they started to wilt. My mother ordered white roses from Global Rose (another company I’d totally recommend), and I recruited the help of my sister’s future sister-in-law, Bridget, to assemble the floral centerpieces. I swear, Bridget’s job should be an event planner, or at least a floral designer, because the end result was absolutely stunning. For real, she’s insanely talented. I laid these out along the tables, and added some Eucalyptus garland I found on Hobby Lobby (on sale of course), and then scoured my house and my friends houses for gold and silver glass candle votives to tie it all together.
For the backdrop, I ordered a bunch of things off Amazon, including a backdrop stand, white drapery, and faux greenery and flowers, and kind of threw it all together hoping they’d all work. Success. I ordered succulents through The Succulent Source for the guest favors, and added the “Love” tags to every couple of succulents to give them a little more dimension.
Through all of my design and planning, I kept my sister in the back of my mind, and made sure to add personal touches here and there that I knew she would enjoy. I printed out pictures documenting her 10 year relationship, pictures that went back to their Freshman year of college (such babies!), framed them and scattered them throughout the party – at the dessert table, beverage/succulent table, and in a few various spots around my house. Her and I both love all things Real Housewives, so I made sure to have plenty of Vanderpump Rose on hand – which BTW was a huge hit!
Overall, the day was perfect. We had great weather, the food was incredible, and most important of all, my sister really loved it. So many laughs, so many memories made, and most importantly, we all got to celebrate their love! I had so much fun putting this together for her, and would do it all over again in a heartbeat!
Take a look at some more pictures from the day!
