Bridal Shower

 Aliza and I had the privilege of hosting a bridal shower for Aliza's best friend, Alena. This was our project as soon as Aliza got home from camp. Aliza knows Alena so well. I wanted her to take the lead in the vision for the shower. 

Pretty quickly, Aliza knew she wanted to use wildflowers to decorate. I had recently come across a local u-pick wildflower farm and knew it would be perfect for the bridesmaids to pick and arrange flowers for the shower. It turned out that the farm ended their season earlier in the week. When I asked for other ideas on facebook, the farm owner reached out to me and offered for the bridesmaids to forage for whatever was left for a discounted. For these girls, it was absolutely perfect. They were alone in the field and had the best time together. 

Food was a little challenging because food is not Alena's thing and Aliza really wanted everything to be food that Alena would be comfortable eating. 

We decided on individual charcuterie cups, a fruit plate and individual lemon blueberry trifles. 

The charcuterie cups had nuts on the bottom, salami, cheeses, blackberry, raspberries, cracker and a pretzel roll bite. 

 

I want to make this lemon blueberry trifle again! Lemon pound cake, lemon curd, lemon cheesecake filling and blueberries. Served in mini parfait cups with tiny spoons made it feel extra special! 

I am now a huge fan of personalized water bottle labels. For a couple dollars on etsy, I could get the template to personalize and then my friend printed them. 

We held the shower in the youth room at church. Aliza's goal was to make this church room feel more homey like a living room. She added a coffee table and tray tables, the wildflower bouquets were a perfect touch, and she covered the whiteboard with a backdrop that said "Miss to Mrs." and filled in the sides with balloons. 

Aliza was also led the games. She asked the bride and groom's moms for pictures of them at different ages and then the guests guessed their ages. It was a fun decoration and people had fun guessing and talking about the pictures. 

 

Then we played Scattergories. The categories were all wedding related and we used the letters L-O-V-E. The older ladies had never heard of Scattergories. They were good sports especially given that we did not choose easy letters to get them started! 

I asked everyone to write down a memory they have with Alena or marriage advice. When it was time to open gifts, I read one, Alena figured out who said it and then she opened the gift from that person. 

This is Alena and Aliza's "best friend" picture pose. 

This was the first event that Aliza and I planned together. It took a lot of communication for us to understand each other's vision. The day of the shower, I prepared the food while Aliza and Anna decorated the room and it was just perfect. 

I am often Melinda's "wing woman." This time she had no idea what was being planned and she got to just arrive and enjoy the event as mother of the bride. This season of launching children is special one that we share and cheer each other on in. Let's me clear though--I'm just fine that this is HER daughter getting married at 20 years old and not mine!!