Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Bridal Shower of the Century

On Sunday I had the honor of attending a bridal shower for an old college friend, and it was the most amazing bridal shower I have ever been to.  No cheesy bridal shower games to be found - this was elegant, creative and very unique.

Let's start with The Location:

I'm kicking myself for not getting a photo of the front of the house - amazing.  Anyway, this is the back yard.  It overlooks a canal in Newport Beach, CA.  Ducks and their babies slowly swam by as we mingled in the back yard.


Another view of the backyard.  This is the bride-to-be (on our laps), with a group of our good friends from college.  4 of us in this photo were Resident Assistants together and have remained close throughout the years (I won't say how many years, but let's just say it is over 10 now!)


The Food:
Popcorn in old music notes?!  Genius!

Could this setting be any more gorgeous?



Heather giving Kelly a "tour" of the patio and all of the food (Kelly is the bride-to-be in white):

Let's move over to The Drinks:


Here we have Lemonade, Arnold-Palmer (iced tea/lemonade), assorted fine wines, water with lemon, and two types of homemade Sangria (red wine and white wine).  Now, I'm not a big wine drinker, but the red Sangria tasted amazing!



Now to the Inside:
A chocolatier from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory came and demonstrated chocolate-dipping techniques.  We each got to decorate a "groom" cookie, as well as dip strawberries in chocolate.  Amazing!


We watched a video of the groom telling us what he loves about the bride.  Let me mention here how he proposed... he hired a string-quartet to come and set up on her lawn while they were inside of her house.  He "ran out to the car" and knocked on the door to come back in.  When she answered the door, she was greeted by the sounds of classical music on her lawn.  He then proceeded to play a vinyl LP on a record player of a song he wrote for her, and then got down on one knee and proposed.  This is no ordinary couple!! :)


We moved to the backyard where we were treated to a huge surprise - a concert by musician Molly Jenson, a favorite artist of Kelly's.



She played for about 45 minutes for us, and while she was singing, this helicopter kept circling right above the house.  We kept joking that it was the paparazzi.


Afterwards we took tons of pictures:
(Kelly requested that we all sing opera) :)

Wow, I look quite scary here.


Kelly chatted with Molly:

And then we moved inside for the Gifts:

This is my gift that I just had to share.  I went through a Scrabble Tile necklace phase and have tons of tiles left, so I created a little "present topper" for the couple. It was so easy to do- I just drew a heart on a blank tile, and super-glued them all down.  You can do this for a baby gift too.   I was so happy that she loved it!



I have been referring to this shower as "The Shower of the Century".  It truly was so unique, and special, and amazing.  Four bridesmaids planned the entire thing and worked so hard on it.

Maybe you will get some good ideas from this shower - I know I did!  Maybe you can't afford to hire a chocolatier and a musician to fly in, but you could get people you know to do some of this.  All of those special touches added up to be the most amazing bridal shower ever.

5 comments:

  1. Looks so amazing - what a wonderful day! Was that Bethany in the back left of the big group picture?

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  2. Very nice, would have never thought to do a bridal shower in that fashion. I am a new follower and I would love a follow back!!
    http://www.mommykatie.com/

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  3. Can I just tell you that I ogled, studied, and gaped at these pics on your FB page but didn't dare leave a comment because I didn't want to scare the bride-to-be w/ my stalkerish tendencies :)! So, so beautiful!

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  4. Oh my what a beautiful shower! I'm in So Cal so I know where that is. What an amazing party, and definitely lots of inspiration!!

    Visiting from NFF :)

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