April Fool's Shower

My very best buddy Kendra is getting married in July here in Memphis. And I am quite honored to be, not only a part of her glorious day, but her Matron of Honor no less!! And although I cannot wait for the big day to be here, I have secretly been over-planning for her bridal shower since she asked me to be in the wedding!

I love to throw a good shower. And let me tell you I have thrown a few. Actually I have thrown 6 baby showers, 10 wedding showers in the past 5 years to be exact. I mean my friends and I have this down to a science.

To throw a nice shower you need the following (in order of importance):

1. A theme, for this shower I went with April Fools because it was set for April 2nd
2. A color palette, for invites and decorations to coordinate with your theme, for this I used Kendra's wedding colors: chocolate brown and jade green, with accents of cream
3. A menu, this is my least favorite part. I like to cook but I am not a gourmet so the food WAY stresses me out. I happily pass this part off to other hostesses every time.
4. An invite, that follows the theme and color palette of course. I luckily have a resident graphic designer who always creates the most perfect design for every shower I throw.
5. Decoration and Design plan, again that follows your theme and color palette (are you getting my drift here? It's ALL about a theme) this also includes flowers, which need to be present and fresh (read:real) at every shower I throw.
6. Games or activities, I like this to keep the party moving but I do not like using traditional or cheesy games if you can help it
7. Favors, just a little token to send away with your guests to show how much you appreciate them coming

Now ideally no hostess is ever responsible for all of this on her own. And luckily for the many showers I have thrown this is true. I have always had a group of capable ladies working together. This shower was no different. Although I didn't know any of Kendra's bridesmaids before, they are wonderful just like her and we all worked together to throw a great shower.

My jobs were the invites, because I have the secret weapon graphic designer, and to have my house ready to host. No problem. Step one was mucho easy because I just told Matt my design concept and he immediately made it happen. He's awesome like that. The second part I got a little obsessive over. I mean it's my house. And 40 ladies were coming to scrutinize see it. And it was the first nice weekend of Spring, so not only would people want to see the inside, they would be outside. I had to get everything ready! Every flower bed needed to be redone, all baseboards scrubbed and so on. I have to take this moment to publically say I could never do any of this without Matt, he sweeps and scrubs right along with me every time I have a shower and he is amazing, because he does it happily and he never asked to host a shower! Love you Matt!!!

So after the house was sparkly clean I needed a Hobby Lobby(for decs) and Home depot (for yard) run! I bought fabric that coordinated with our theme and invites. And made two matching table runners for the main tables, here is the dinning table runner

 

Then I created a sign for the bride to be with coordinating ribbon and scrapbook paper:

 

I had some leftover fabric so I made up an "card keeper" for Kendra to put her bridal shower cards in for keepsake, you can also see the framed invite for the bride which is a must at all of my showers, the tulips are the brides favorite and were sent the day of the shower by the groom, he's a good one!

The day of the shower another bridesmaid, Jennifer, who is AWESOME, brought and arranged all of the fresh flowers. We had 6 bouqets total throughout the house and back deck. You can also see the AMAZING food that was made from scratch by Maggie and Mandy. It was so so so good!! I accented the tables with green and brown candles on top of upside down wine glasses, with a fresh flower under the bowl and a ribbon around the stem.

And here are our precious favors, by Rachel and Amy!

 

As you can see, we had a great afternoon. Everyone worked together to honor our wonderful friend on her upcoming wedding. And we had perfect weather on top of it all, so we were able to play Alicia's games and open gifts outside on the back deck!

Here is a picture of the beautiful bride and her bridesmaids.

 

Congratulations Kendra! I hope you enjoyed your shower as much as we enjoyed throwing it for you.