The Perfect Bridal Shower

Last weekend two of my dear friends and I threw one of our best friends a bridal shower. This post was, in fact, requested by the bride to be, but let’s  be honest, I would’ve posted about it anyway. 🙂

I’ve attended countless wedding showers, but this was the first one I hosted and it was so much fun! I look forward to all of my future shower-throwing opportunities.

Now, I’ll take you through the planning process.

Step 1: Pick a date.

After determining the co-hostess(es), picking a date for the shower is the priority. Obviously the bride’s availability is the most important, but then you must consider the schedules of the guests. We went with Memorial Day weekend, which we knew could hurt us a little if people had plans, but for us, it worked well because some out-of-town guests were able to make it.

Along with choosing a date, comes choosing a location. Sometimes showers can be hosted at restaurants, or tea rooms in like a private room, but we elected to hold the shower at my parents’ house. You can’t beat free! Also, this way, we wouldn’t have to transport a bunch of stuff, and we could decorate however we wanted.

Step 2: Design and order invitations.

Invitations to a shower are typically sent out about a month in advance. Some things to take into consideration are the time it takes to design, proof, order and address the invitations. We decided to throw the shower just about 6 weeks prior to the date we selected, so we were a little crunched for time. When considering invitation options, we knew we wanted something pretty, yet classy. Evites are a nice option for some, but I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to a beautiful card stock invitation — I just can’t resist them! Well, and I love all things mail and post office related, but that’s another story. Another great option for invitations is Etsy! There are some beautiful invitations available on Etsy, but because of timing, we couldn’t go that route.

Make sure to get the guest list from the bride before ordering invitations because you need to know how many to order.

I knew of a couple of local stationary shops, so I decided to swing by on my lunch break. I ended up getting them from a place called No Regrets in Oklahoma City (which I would HIGHLY recommend). The staff was fabulous to work with and they got the invitations printed quickly since we were in a time crunch. It did take a little longer than originally anticipated, but just because we made some edits to the proof we were sent.

We wanted everything to be perfect for the shower and really nice, but we also didn’t want to go broke in the process (remember we are only 20-somethings and definitely not rollin’ in the dough), so we chose an invitation that was a standard mailing size and not too heavy of a paper, so that we didn’t have to pay additional postage. Depending on how many invitations are sent, postage can add up! I could’ve had the guests’ names and addresses printed on the envelopes as well, but it costed more and I didn’t have all of the addresses when I was placing the order, so I just opted to hand write them. This is where it was unfortunate (for me) that the other 2 hostesses lived in different cities. I did elect to have my return address printed on the back flap of the envelopes, mostly because it was less for me to write and saved some time as well.

I couldn’t have been more pleased with how the invitations turned out. Even though I don’t have the world’s best handwriting, I think the addresses turned out pretty well too! I will admit, they didn’t go in the mail until about 3 or 3 1/2 weeks prior.

The invitations! Excuse the smudges – I had to get rid of some contact info for privacy purposes.

3. Plan and/or order the food.

At first, we considered some local catering options for the food. This would have been the easy option, but also probably a little pricier. After some brainstorming and Pinterest-browsing, we decided to just make the food ourselves.

The shower was at 2:00pm, so we didn’t need to serve a meal, but we definitely needed to have some food, a dessert, and drinks. We decided on the following menu.

• Chicken Salad on Rolls
• Fruit Salad
• Hummus with Pita Chips
• Cheese Cubes & Crackers
• Artichoke Dip & Crackers
• Petit Fours
• Mimosa Bar
• Water with Pineapple & Strawberries

{The Chicken Salad and Artichoke Dip recipes will be making their blog debuts sooner than later.}

Personally, I would always suggest ordering or planning a little more food if you’re worried about the amount, because there’s nothing worse than a party that runs out of food. But, I love food, so I’m sure you’re not shocked by this. AND we definitely didn’t come anywhere close to running out, but who doesn’t love some leftover fruit and chicken salad.

We bought the food on Friday evening, when one of the other hostesses got into town, and then prepared everything on Saturday morning. Though it took a little longer than anticipated and we ended up rushing a bit at the last minute, the food prep was really quite simple. For the fruit salad, we cut up watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberries and threw in some grapes. It was beautiful in a big glass bowl. The hummus, crackers, pita chips, mimosa bar supplies (juice and champagne) and petit fours were store bought, so no prep there. I will take a second to give a shout out to the bakery I ordered the petit fours from: Sweete Memories in Oklahoma City. They turned out so pretty, and were also extremely yummy. I may have had more than one… We also bought blocks of cheese and then cut them into cubes ourselves. Like I mentioned, I made the artichoke dip and the chicken salad, but we did purchase the rolls for the chicken salad. For the water, we just added some freshly cut pineapple and strawberries, and it tasted delicious!

Some of the food!

4. Plan the decor.

One of the hostesses, luckily for the other two of us, is awesome at decorating and displaying things. She brought some dishes with her, and the other hostess brought some champagne glasses and McKenzie Childs platters she borrowed from a friend. We ended up with more than enough dishes, and the food table turned out perfectly.

The spread.

One thing we did, that isn’t necessary, per se, but I thought really made everything look nice, was order flower arrangements. We got one larger and two smaller arrangements from an amazing and relatively new florist in Oklahoma City – Dutch. They were wonderful to work with, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the flowers. Not to mention, that flowers can get quite pricey, but Dutch was really pretty reasonable!

The big arrangement. (Not the best pic but you get the idea..)

The two smaller arrangements. I loved the mint vases!

The decor-savy hostess also brought this super cute ribbon garland that she used at a bachelorette party that she hosted recently. We draped it behind the present table that was displayed in the entry way. The table also had a white lacey tablecloth with a gold satin runner bunched up nicely to add some texture. One of the smaller flower arrangements was also on the gift table. {I’m trying my best to be descriptive, because we didn’t actually get a picture of the gift table, which I’m sad about because it looked great!}

See the ribbon garland in the background.

5. The shower gift.

I’m not really sure what’s standard when it comes to the shower gift from the hostess(es), but both of the other hostesses and myself decided to go in together on a gift for the bride. I normally am one who always always always buys bridal shower and wedding gifts from registries because I figure if they went to the effort to choose those items, they probably really want/need them, but this time we did not. We bought the bride a couple of McKenzie Childs serving dishes. I think this was perfect, because the bride LOVES to entertain, and was surprised at the same time! Plus, you can’t really go wrong with something McKenzie Childs… Shout out to a fellow Chi Omega who makes beautiful dishes (and more)!

One of the serving pieces we gave the bride. I’m thinking I need one too…

 

In the end, I think the shower ended up pretty much being the perfect bridal shower, granted, I’m biased. But, I did enjoy every step of the planning and shower-throwing process! Hopefully our methods and tips come in handy in all of your future shower hosting endeavors!