Happily Ever After {Shirley's Bridal Shower}

My cousin Shirley is getting married in August so my Mom, Sister and I threw her her first (and best ever) shower. The theme was fittingly, Happily ever after. Since most of our family lives out of town we planned for things to last the entire afternoon. We started out with lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Grand Finale.

We ate a delicious lunch, watched Shirley open gifts and laughed as we read aloud our answers to a wedding style Mad libs. Let's just say when Shirley and Aaron cut their cake their will be fist bumps and head bobs and I think we decided on pickles as the meal each guest would receive. Ha.

After spending a few hours at the restaurant we headed back to my house for dessert and a craft. The girls in our family love a good project (see our baby onesie making party here). We decided to have each guest make a scrapbook page including a picture from my cousin's engagement shoot and incorporate a piece of advice to help them keep their Happily Ever After. It turned out so cute! I loved seeing the pages come together and reading the sweet words of wisdom.

My house was also where the husbands were with the babies so you can bet the babies did their part as entertainment. This picture says it all. I love everything about it.

Then we had to get all the girl cousins together for our "squish" picture, which we take every time we are together and now have dozens of. I love these girls with all my heart.

I can't wait to see these pretty faces again in August! 

An evening in Italy {Italy inspired Bridal Shower}

This past weekend my sister in laws and I threw a bridal shower for my lovely sister in law, Carly. Carly studied abroad in Italy so we knew the theme would have to be an evening in Italy!

We had the shower at Drew's family cabin, but we definitely transformed it from woodsy and rustic to Italian dinner party for the evening. For decoration we knew we needed fun lighting to make it feel more Italy inspired. The larger string lights pictured above are from Target and it completely changed the atmosphere.

Each table had fresh flowers from Trader Joe's and we wrapped them in floral patterned cones (thank you Martha Stewart) so the guests could take a bundle of fresh flowers home. We used galvanized containers to put fresh herbs in, got carafes for water, each table had a bread basket and of course we had candles lit and Italian music playing!

My sister in laws and I made all the food for the evening including: Caprese Salad, Bruschetta, Crostini, White bean dip, 2 different pasta dishes and a few amazing italian inspired desserts.

We wanted to do something different so we served the food family style. Each group of 7-8 guests had their own pasta dishes and salad to pass around. Dishes were delivered and wine was poured by my handsome husband and his best friend. (You know you have an awesome husband when he is willing to do something like this on his Saturday night AND actually have fun with it!)

We worked so hard to make it a fun evening and fun was definitely had by all. I am so glad we were able to shower Carly with love and make her feel like she was back in Italy at least for one evening.