Bridal Shower Planning: 101

The key to any successful shower or party is in the details. Your guests will notice the little things you did to go above and beyond preparation. Sometimes, prep work and planning takes a team. In my case, it took me and two other bridesmaids to throw my sister an epic bridal shower. 

Make a budget. 

We started planning months before the actual bridal shower to make sure we didn’t over spend. I had to reign the other girls in a few times because, let’s face it, this gal isn’t made of money. But for the most part we stuck to the plan. 

We thought about where to get food, what we would use for favors, drinks, everything. Start planning in advance so the money for everything isn’t a shock when it’s a week before the wedding and you still have to buy meats and cheeses! 

Plan your menu

Originally we were going to try and have Chick Fil A cater everything. Sadly Chick Fil A isn’t open on Sundays. Plan B, Sam’s club for food in bulk! We decided getting lots of meats and cheeses to make sammies was the best idea to feed a large amount of people. We were able to get some of the meats on sale with coupons and manager’s specials for the Salami. (win!) 

Fruits are always a great idea! 

Just keep in mind who you’re feeding. We struggled with having a few guests that couldn’t have gluten, so obviously bread for sambas were off limits. Instead we offered gluten free crackers and popcorn. Finger foods are perfect for showers like this. 

Stay hydrated! 

Obviously we had to have a mimosa bar! We offered both OJ and Grapefruit juices to mix things up. (Hint, the grapefruit was my favorite!) 

Don’t worry, we had options for guests that might not want to day drink with us. (I swear I’m not a lush)

We got a great deal on the four drink dispensers. In addition to the mimosa bar: we had lemonade, sweet tea, and water. 

It’s all in the details 

I cannot take any credit for crafting portions of the bridal shower. That was all on one of the other bridesmaids. She essentially told me and the matron of honor what to do / how to do it and we did. 

|| Polished Brides. 

Hot glue + flowers / mini veils on nail polish = these cute little favors for guests. They were able to choose a color they loved to take home. 

|| Chocolate Sunflowers

Yes we melted chocolate. Yes we had to dye it. Yes this was a pain in the butt. 

|| Mint To Be

Mints + Hot glue / hand written decor = cuteness galore. 

|| Date Box

We painted / added pictures / decorated this cute little box from the craft store to make a date box idea for my sister and her soon to be hubby. All of the guests at the party wrote down a date idea for when they get stuck on what to do. They choose a date randomly and have an adventure! 

|| Gifts for the mom’s / Step mom’s 

Because they’re important too! We threw these little “spa” boxes together for the amazing women in the bride’s life. 

|| Letters to the bride

When invitations were mailed out, we asked everyone invited to write a letter to my sister. It could’ve been a memory, a funny story, anything. We made sure to have the letters a week before the shower so we could make a scrap book. We gave her the book as a gift. She knew nothing about this until we surprised her with it. We even had her finance type up a letter. (Everyone else’s was hand written) Her reaction was priceless. 

Needless to say, we felt like the shower was perfect. We had games, prizes, and lots of laughter. Even unwanted advice from Grandma. No one was surprised with that though. At the end of the day, we were thankful for the mimosas! 

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Things I Love: Photography

There's a lot of things I love in life. A few I should probably mention immediately are my kids, my husband, and really great chocolate. I also love amazing photography! I have a deep appreciation for people that can snap a picture and turn it into something that gets hung in museums and are priceless works of art.

Today I'd like to introduce y'all to my sister, Becca. She's a recent graduate from Gwinnett Tech for photography, and she's pretty amazing. Her photos are something I really love, and I feel like the blogging world needs to know about her! Now, I'm not saying my sister has pictures in museums, but I am saying that she could. I might be a bit biased but I love her work.

Becca doesn't like to have her face in pictures ;)

When asked what type of photography she does she said,

"I specialize in Commercial Advertising Photography and play around with Conceptual Photography."

I also asked what her goals for her photography is. She answered with,

"I am trying to put together a portfolio of stuff I have edited or retouched to try and get my feet in a business of my own. Hopefully I will have that up soon!"

Personally, I think she has a real talent when it comes to retouching and editing. While she was in school, one of her projects was to retouch a photo. The photo she used was one from our Grandmother. It's got to be over 100 years old and the result was incredible. Well, just take a look:

Want to see more of her work? Easy... Bex Photos is where you want to go. On the site, she has a blog (it must run in the family!). It's a photography blog, but what else would you expect? I love scrolling through her new pictures each week. Last week, she "Illustrated a song"... Can you guess which song?

I love my sister, and I love that she's found her passion. It's not everyday where you know exactly what you want to do when you "grow up" Becca has figured it out. If you ask me, photography is her calling! She knows she doesn't enjoy photographing people because she's not comfortable "bossing" people around, and that's OK because she's making art with everything else!
Interested in buying one of her (amazing) pieces? Even easier! She has an etsy page!

"Trees" One of her pieces for sale

Do you share my love for photography? Do you know a local photographer that's just starting up? 

Grateful For Siblings

That's right, I said it. I'm grateful for my siblings. It's Monday and that means we're linking up with Emily over at Ember Grey. Who, by the way got to go to the blogging confrence in Indy (super jealous... can't wait to hear all about it!) I've had an amazing weekend with my two youngest brothers, so I had to dedicate my Grateful Heart Monday to my siblings (even my sister even though I didn't get to play with her this past weekend) *sad face*

So... We're about to get real on the blog for a little bit y'all. I have to explain my family situation. So there's my mom. She's great. She was married to my dad for awhile. They had me on Christmas, 1987 (there's the real part because now you know my age!) 14 months later my sister was born. And because pictures help everything, here you go!

Sadly, mom and dad were too different and got divorced. A few years later Mom met someone new. We lovingly refer to him as Jethro, or Asshole (if we're feeling exceptionally loving). *hint: we don't like Asshole*. Well, Mom and Jethro ended up having two boys together. On purpose, I don't have any pictures of Jethro; so sorry, he's not part of the family tree. The oldest of the two is 15 years younger than me. The youngest is 17 years younger than me. Can we say age gap?? Yikes! So if you're doing the math and keeping up with the class, you know that J1 (because they both have names that start with J) is 11 and J2 is 9.

Moving on. The good news is my mom left Jethro about three years ago! PRAISE! She is now doing well, married to a wonderful new man that everyone loves, and just bought a new house!

Now that you know all that, I can move on (yeah, sorry... that wasn't the point of the blog post but I felt like it was relevant).

My mom and her newest hubby took a trip this past weekend to see my newest step sister get married (aw!). But, they couldn't bring brothers so I got to play with them ALL weekend! They had the option of either staying with their dad all weekend or our house, they picked my house! And yes, I'm genuinely excited about that! Zander loves playing with his uncles, and they're really great with him. With Ainsley too but for the most part she does whatever she wants to anyway. She sometimes doesn't care about Uncles.

I'm grateful that I have a close bond with all of my family, and that my brothers enjoy spending time with me. I think it helps that we have an XBox 360, but they do like playing with Zander and Ainsley. Josh isn't a fan of board games, so when my brothers are here I actually get a chance to play Clue! I'm grateful that I have such a large family, my new step siblings included.

Even with them getting Zander glued to the TV / Video games I'm grateful that they wanted to spend the night here. 

What are you grateful for today?