Melissa's Bridal Shower

Melissa's bridal shower was held during lunch on a Thursday afternoon. Below is the top half of the invite, made in Word since that's what my office has to work with. Hence, the quality of this jpeg. My theme was her color of aqua plus red and some hearts.

The conference room we used was the smallest in my office, which worked out well. I made two paper pennants, one that spelled out "M + A = ♥". The plus signs were just an outline; I got artsy and it bit me in the butt when we hung them in a window.

The other garland was just blue and red and white patterns strung on blue string. I printed these at work, and then the wonderful Boyfriend helped me assemble.

You can see the patterned pennants above as everyone worked on my party game. I designed and printed out cards (see below) that matched my M ♥ A theme in the party colors. I asked everyone to write a helpful hint or piece of advice for either moving or marriage. Then they were to drop the hints in a Anthropologie bag that I made a coordinating label to hide the Anthropologie design.

The one element that every bridal shower needs is a veil on the guest of honor. I whipped this up one night as the Boyfriend and my roommate watched a James Bond movie in the living room. I had the tulle scraps (literally scraps) and hair comb in my stash. The flower and pearl accents were from the second boutonniere I purchased for Yale Prom. It was just as ugly as it looks in the picture, so I hacked it apart and gave it a second life.

Our party budget was small, so we couldn't order lunch for everyone. Instead we had the GINORMOUS Costco cupcakes and ice cream. These cakes are amazing and delicious. I received compliments about them the next day like I was the baker!

As you can see, the frosting coordinates with my colors. I made the flags from ribbon I purchased (again in the aqua color) from Namemaker. They send me coupons all the time since they make my Prettylittlemess Product labels. The ribbon purchased with a coupon is not as much as you would think (and perhaps I ordered this as a trial run for my own wedding).

I made 40 flags and there were still yards left of the 10 yard spool. Another shout out to the Boyfriend for helping make cupcake flags.

For beverages, I bought Italian soda from World Market and created my own labels using full size sheets of Avery label paper. See the gingham plastic picnic tablecloth peeking out? Just like a summer picnic.

A party isn't a party without a party favor. I designed and made mini matchbook notebooks utilizing the scraps of patterned paper from the pennants. I ordered golf pencils to use as mini writing utensils. The cellophane bags were from an Etsy supply seller, and I created the packaging label.

I'm working on posting downloadable patterns for all the paper products I created. And the party photography is courtesy of my new personal event photographer Heather Ryan Photography.