Showering the Bride & Gettin' Crafty

My best friend Holli is getting married.

My best friend, of 22 years, is GETTING. MARRIED.

We are in the home stretch now and all of the festivities have come and gone. In fact, the Bridal Shower that I got to take part in was just this past Sunday. I feel like I've waited a long time to be able to do all of this for my best friend. I wanted everything to be perfect.

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When it came time to plan the shower I was all kinds of excited. I wanted so much out of it! I wanted it to be classy, and pretty, and all the things that I think of when I think of Holli. The first step is always the venue, and I had been to a shower at the Little Hills Winery in St. Charles before, so it was my first thought. Low and behold the prices were reasonable, so that’s what we went with. *We did check a few other places as well and this one ended up being the least expensive for what we got.

Since the food was catered by the winery, we only had to worry about the cake. One of the bridesmaids offered to order and pick-up the cake from a small local shop called Midtowne Market). It was marble with white icing and dainty little flowers on it. And boy was it yummy!

I absolutely love playing games at showers, so we had a couple small ones to play that I thought might be fun (I am the least crafty person, but I "pinterested" some ideas and made these all by myself!). We played “He Said, She Said” and “What’s in Your Purse?” They went over pretty well and some people got some good laughs out of them. And another bridesmaid offered to purchase the prizes for the games, and she did so great! Wish I would have gotten pictures of them because you’d agree with me 100%. I wanted each and every prize for myself.

Another thing I had done, was I put “Advice for the Bride” cards and blank recipe cards in with the invitations for the guests to fill out ahead of time. I had been to a shower previously that did these two things and I thought it was so clever! It’s always great to get a recipe or advice from a friend that you know rather than a stranger. I hope Holli gets a lot out of those. We also picked one of each at random to win a prize.

Then, since everyone can’t go home with a prize, I made up some cute little favors for each person to take home. This was actually a Pinterest idea that I found, and I used an app on my phone called Rhonna Designs to create the tag. I tied each tag around a small bottle of wine, and voila! I thought it turned out so well!

All in all the shower was a success. We did wind up with a lot of leftover food to take home since we had so many no-shows, but it was still a great turnout and Holli got lots of great gifts, recipes and advice from lots of women who love her.

Now, I can’t wait for the wedding!!!