Shower Sunday: Tinker Bell Bridal Shower

The best parties are based off personalized inspiration. For this bridal shower, the bride loved Tinker Bell!  So we went with it!

To help tie in with the overall theme, consider using a themed bag or wrapping your gift to match the decor!  It's an easy, small thing that makes the gift table pop!

Yum!  If you've never tried a candy bar for a party or shower, it's so fun and a simple, delicious favor for guests!  In addition to Tinker Bell, we used the colors of the wedding as our shower decor colors - so we purchased as many different kinds of candy in these colors as possible.  It makes my mouth water just looking at these pictures!

Ribbon is a super easy, inexpensive way to add color and character to party staples like drink containers.  This is an example of a small touch with a big impact.

We planned three simple shower games.  (1) Each guest was given a necklace to wear - if they were caught saying "wedding" or "ring", they had to forfeit their necklace.  The person with the most, received a small gift card.  (2) A spin off a traditional "words of wisdom" game, each guest took a jewel or pearl of wisdom.  We went around the circle and each guest offered their words and dropped the jewel into a container that was given to the bride as a keepsake jar for her wedding day.  She can later add petals from her bouquet, pieces from her invite and any other keepsake such as bird seed or a bubble jar.  (3) Finally, we played Disney scategories (sorry, no picture!) where the guests had to come up with alphabetical answers based on Disney themed questions.  As a small thing, we used Disney themed books as the boards guests wrote on.

Another small thing, that can make a big impact on the bride is to ask guests to fill out an envelop with their address to save the bride the time addressing thank you's herself.  It's simple, small and easy!

To tie the color in and add a vertical touch to the decorations, we hung ribbon and beads from the light fixtures and ceiling.  Small, inexpensive and classy!  And of course, we added Tinker Bell wherever we could.  We found a set of 6 Tinker Bell cupcake toppers and hand painted them ourselves to match the colors of the wedding as well as the bride (a brunette).  So fun!

We had a great time planning this shower and watching it come together!  The company was fabulous and the bride enjoyed herself and felt the love - which is what it's all about! 

When you're planning your next party, think about the small things that you can add to make a big impact with a tight budget.  And be creative!

Shower Sunday: Blackberry Pie & Cocoa

I love baby showers!  They are so fun and the themes are endless.  My sister-in-law is expecting a baby girl and we were so excited to plan her shower.  The inspiration for this shower came in the strangest form - dessert!  Kaysee loves blackberry pie and the colors were perfect for a baby girl shower.

All of the decorations came together perfectly!  We kept the decor simple with lots of small things making a beautiful tablescape.  The home decor of the hostess just so happened to fit perfectly.  Purple napkins, raspberry pink and purple M&Ms, red and purple mugs, fun pink & purple tissue paper puffs and a soft, purple blanket draped over a white tablecloth for a pop of color and texture to the table.

For drinks, we again kept it simple.  For an evening shower (7:00-9:00pm) in November, hot cocoa was the perfect warm beverage.  We had four flavors of cocoa (regular, dark, mint and salted caramel), three flavors of marshmallows, whip cream, sprinkles and crushed candy canes for toppings. Delicious!

Our inspiration was blackberry pie - so obviously, that's what we served for dessert.  Delicious at any temperature, we made the pies earlier in the day to avoid a time crunch.  They were delicious!  Serving only one dessert choice made the menu simple and delicious.

We kept our activities simple, too.  I don't know many moms-to-be who really enjoy the typical shower games.  They can often be awkward for guests, too.  We had three activities - the first two were as close to "shower games" as we got.

This final activity was harder than I anticipated!  We each wrote down wishes for Addison and Kaysee collected them for her memory box.  This activity would only work for moms that want to remember by keeping mementos.  I printed out extras for people who were not at the shower to fill out.

 Finally, we included a "station" for addressing your thank you card.  Even if you say you don't, most guests do like to receive thank you cards from the mom-to-be.  This makes it a little easier for mom.

Overall, it was a great shower!  It was small, but beautiful - fun, but simple.  

We're so excited for Baby Addison to arrive!

It's in the small things!