The Bridal Shower

We had a wonderful bridal shower for Anya on Saturday. She and her mother are dear friends of me and my daughter. The shower was a huge success.

It is tradition to give the bride-to-be a corsage to wear during her shower. But Anya loves to do her own thing so we went looking for something different than a corsage to distinguish her place of honor at the shower. One of the things Anya is well know for is that she always wears her sunglasses on top of her head. She is never without them. Add to that the fact that she has an awesome sense of humor and we found exactly what we were looking for on Oriental Trading....bride to be sunglasses!

We set up a little table with the bride's favorite picture of her and her intended. It was in a signable mat so she can frame it with the guests' signature from the shower. The two little clear boxes held gifts for the Mother's. They were adorable hankies. One said "Mother of the Bride" and one said "Mother of the Groom". We presented those to the Mom's.

The food was a huge hit. We had meatballs in red sauce, queso cheese with bacon/cheddar tater skin chips, chips with ranch or French onion dip, Tostitos and salsa, pasta salad and two awesome cheese balls made by a dear friend, Janie.

Hubby's pasta salad was a big hit. He made it with rainbow spiral pasta, black olives, Granny Smith and McIntosh apples, carrots, red onion, hot pepper, cucumber, bacon bits, cherry tomatoes and creamy Italian dressing.

We found this cute little "Sweet Bar" sign at Party City and placed it over the dessert table. We had a cake, cupcakes, Oreos (in keeping with black and blue theme), nuts and mints. Anya was thrilled that we had asked her Granny to bring her famous banana pudding as well. It is always a hit everywhere Granny goes.

The cake was very elegant with the gorgeous blue roses. Food City is our favorite place to get cakes. They do a fantastic job and it is so delicious.

For those who prefer cupcakes, we decided to go with a couple of dozen of those as well. They turned out so cute. The white ones had little blue rose buds and the blue ones had little white doves. The white ones were also sprinkled with edible glitter which was a cute touch.

The crowd began arriving and Anya snatched her friends little baby to cuddle on. Anya loves children and all the kids at church consider her their "Aunt" Anya.

Of course, I have to sneak in a picture of my granddaughter, Alexis. She asked Anya if she could hold the baby. Notice Alexis is still in princess mode. She loves her new tiara.

My granddaughter, Shelby, wanted us to see her baby so we had to take a picture of it as well.

We had a fantastic crowd. We couldn't have been more pleased with the turnout. We wanted it to be a special day that Anya would remember. I think we got our wish. She was surrounded with friends, family, extended family and church family. We even managed to surprise her by having one of her good friends from high school days show up. It turns out that my niece by marriage was Anya's good friends in high school and they had lost touch. It was great to see everybody that came.

We kept the table decor basic and simple. Elegant white table clothes with a simple vase of flowers on each table.

The flower vases were my favorite thing of the whole planning process. I "hijacked" pictures of Anya and Josh from her Facebook albums and printed them in black and white. Then I put them in Mason jars and tied either a blue and white dotted ribbon around the rim or a black and white dotted ribbon. Then I filled them with assorted white flowers. I was very pleased with the effect and the guests enjoyed going around the room looking at all the pictures of the happy couple.

She received lots of nice gifts and was thrilled with everything she got.

I think everybody had a good time. We played the purse game and had lots of strange items that were all related to things Anya and Josh like or related to weddings. It was cool. The winner was the groom's Mom.

All in all, I think it turned out very well. I want to give a special thank you to my daughter, Diana. I couldn't have pulled it off without her help. Of course, I wouldn't be feeling so gracious to her if she had not caught her runaway buggy that had the cake and cupcakes in it. Her job Saturday was to stop and pick up the cake, cupcakes, and ginger ale for the punch. My heart stopped when she walked into the shower room and said "The cake and cupcakes are okay." Apparently she was loading the ginger ale into her car when somebody honked and she looked up and the shopping cart was rolling through the parking lot at high speed....with the cake and cupcakes in it. But, what's a special day without some little humor of "what might have been."