One Shower-y Afternoon

So the bridal shower came and went quite well, even better than I expected. There were a few hitches here and there, as Murphy's Law states, but for my first time to host one, it was pretty good.

Yes, Pom, there were "oohs" and "aahs" from the guests over the little personalized details that took so much work putting together. One of the guests (a single girl) thanked me for giving her so many ideas that she'd like to see in her own shower party when the time comes. One also came up and asked if I do this for a business, because she has a friend who's also about to get married and is looking for someone who can work on the design and styling stuff. I was flattered by all the feedback, but I had to tell her that I don't do this for a business because my job leaves me little time for anything else, but I'm willing to discuss some kind of business arrangement. Which reminds me, I need to get a new batch of business cards.

This is going to be one mammoth post peppered with pictures so better gird up. Crafty goodness ahead:

You already saw the invites in this post, but I'll post it here again because I tied all the details in the party to the design I used for the invites.







Note: The pics above are pre-DSLR day, so they're blurry and grainy.

The cupcake wrappers I posted here and the tiny flaglets that you saw here came out looking so pretty:







I was just a bit concerned with the cupcakes because they were lopsided! I'll never order cupcakes from that cafe again, even if they tasted yummy. Plus they won't put on icing on top, even when I offered to pay an additional price for it. So I just told the bride that the cupcakes had no garnishings because I didn't want to tempt her away from her diet.

The giveaways- customized chocolate bars:






I just swapped the original wrapper with one I made using the same patterns on the invites. I'm still beating myself on the head for forgetting to take a photo of the back portion! At the back I wrote down "Why Chocolates Are Better Than Sex" and below it were different statements that I copied from this site. It was a total hit among the lady guests!



These are the nangka bars I arranged around a glass of flowers. Nangka is jackfruit (follow the link to see what it looks like) and is unique to Asia. I chose the bars because they came wrapped in an orangey plastic and they coordinated nicely with the party motif. Plus they are yummy, too.



The buffet table arrangement sans food. It was a midafternoon celebration and I love how the afternoon sun shimmered into the blinds, casting glowy stripes all over the room.



With the fresh lumpia this time. Fresh lumpia is like assorted veggies wrapped in lumpia wrappers. I know some Westerners are familiar with the fried lumpia (chopped meat wrapped in lumpia) but this one is the healthy version of it. Nothing is fried. The insides- mostly veggies- are sauteed, and then you bathe it in a delicious soy-garlic sauce before taking a bite.

Personally, I'm not too fond of fresh lumpia but I like the soy-garlic sauce, so I force myself to eat it so I can get a good licking of the sauce! I ordered them for the party so there will be something healthy on the table, to counteract the sweetness of the cupcakes and the nangka bars.

A closer look at the photos on the table:



These were the "pre-nup" pics I took of them. The bride couldn't afford to hire a photog for an engagement session, so we DIY'd it too. These were taken with my Canon point-and-shoot and heavily edited in Photoshopped to make up for my lack of photography skills (hehe). I printed them on glossy photo papers, backed them with a metallic brown cardstock and then mounted on mini tripods. The tripods are also DIY. I just printed photos I found online and showed them to our messenger at work (who does carpentry stuff on the side). They came out wonderfully!



I made this little set-up at the front of the room where guests were asked to share their tips for a happy marriage.



The personalized cards with an RX icon at the upper left corner:



Guests wrote down their naughty and nice tips here and tacked them onto the corkboard (the tripod is also a DIY together with the mini ones):



To set them rolling, I posted the first card:



And more naughty ones followed:



Oh by the way, this how the room looked like after our preps:





We hung paper banners all over the room for a more festive feel. I printed the same patterns on the banners and also cut out triangles of orange and yellow Japanese crepe papers to break the monotony.





At the front where the bride will sit like a queen to open her gifts, I dotted the walls with paper shoes. The shoe is the illustration I made for the invites. I asked the guests to come wearing their highest pair of heels as a nod to the bride's obsession with high heels.

The gift table:



The board started filling up with messages (more naughty than nice!):



Then the bride arrived (an hour late!) and the guests went paparazzi on her:



In the morning before the party I sent her a text message telling her to be fashionably late, like 30 minutes late. But the trial make-up from the guy who will do her makeup on D-day took longer than expected, so she came in a hour late. Like I said, Murphy's Law!



The prettiest bff and bride there is! I forced her to wear the DIY veil (what-do-you-call-that-flimsy-cloth glued to a headband dotted with swarovski crystals).



The bride with her loot piling up on the floor. We used a "room in the house" theme because she wanted practical gifts and not 20 lingeries.

I had to extend the party to another hour from the original 3 to 5 pm because the guests seemed hesitant to leave! Everyone wanted to take more pictures either with the bride or with the room set-up. I practically shoved them outside the door because I shuddered at the thought of going over my budget! Ok, not really but you know what I mean hehe. I guess that's how parties go when guests have a lot of fun. Good food and pretty people in good mood. They just want to linger while the host (moi) is scrambling to get them out the door.

The party did extend to a private videoke room that lasted till the wee hours. A small group of our friends- our college buddies- proceeded to a popular videoke bar and screamed our little drunken hearts out. I don't drink, so just a few sips of margarita are enough to send me dancing on a couch while murdering songs all night long.

How's that for a first time shower party host! :-)