A Shower for Summer

What a weekend we had! It was full of shopping marathons, deceitful scheming, and surprise parties… oh, and BEAUTIFUL weather! I am so excited to share all of the details with you because 1. It was a blast, and 2. The weekend was full of people I love and I want to introduce you to them! We celebrated my soon-to-be sister in-law with a bridal shower of 5o of her closest friends and family. Oh yeah, and it was a surprise. 🙂

First of all, let me introduce you. Here’s Summer:

Isn’t she beautiful? And, if possible, she’s even more stunning on the inside at that. She is marrying my brother, Beau:

Isn’t he beautiful? Hah! Couldn’t help myself… sorry Beau, if you’re reading this. Anyway, they are getting married this June and so it was high time to throw Summer a party and shower her with love and congratulations. And PRESENTS, of course! All of that happened, but it took some doing and you get a front row seat to how we planned, set up, and pulled off the big surprise. Yay for you. 🙂

These are the bridesmaids- the party planners and throwers. From left to right- so you know who I’m talking about when I start naming names- they are: Kelsey, Liz, Eden (Summer’s sister-in-law), Summer, Mollie (Maid of Honor), me, Erika, and Ally (my brother, Clint’s girlfriend).

And I would be remiss not to mention the real MVPs of the production- the mamas. This is Summer with my mom, Julie (left) and her mom, Marilyn (right).

Ok, all squared away? Got your bearings? Good because this is a long post (consider yourself warned) and you may want to find a comfy spot to sit and read. Or if you’ve already had enough and are turning back, I won’t be offended. Just do that now so you don’t get too emotionally attached to the story and characters. Which I have a habit of doing with all of the fictional TV shows I watch. It’s bad. Real bad.

ONWARD. We wanted to plan a shower for Summer that was full of things that make her, well her. Summer is a beautiful soul. Oh, and did I mention, she’s sassy? She totally is. 🙂

She loves Jesus. She loves working with kids- she’s a teacher AND her, Beau, and a few of their friends run a “Homework Club” every week out of Summer’s home. Neighborhood kids (she lives in Philly) come over her house for a safe and fun space to do homework, play games, and be mentored by a loving group of young adults. Summer also loves to read. She loves the classics and can fly through books like it’s nothing. She loves to travel and spent a semester studying in Rome. Finally, Summer loves a good cup of coffee or tea- pair that with a good book and I think she’d be okay with being stranded on an island for a loooooong time.

Somehow, we wanted to take all of the things that make Summer Summer and use them to plan a party that would represent who she is. Here are some of the ideas we used as inspiration for the theme, decorations, and party details.

There is a whole post coming your way with all of the details and decorations, so I’ll save anymore talk about that for later this week. After we nailed down the theme (think books and a cozy drink in a garden), we needed to find a space and a date. The party ended up being at the church I work in and we were so thankful to have been able to use the Parlor for the event.

Next came securing the date and figuring out a way to get Summer to the church. Ally and I were tasked with that job. Needless to say, we started work on this awhile ago. By that I mean MONTHS. After one of our family get togethers, I texted both the girls saying how nice it was to see them (we see each other pretty regularly), but that it would be so great to do a girls’ night sometime. From there, we all began “offering possible dates”, all the while Ally and I came up with reason after reason why certain ones would not work, etc. etc. Once Summer said “I’m free the weekend of April 10-11th”, we pounced! So we planned a girls’ night- the girls would come over to my house on Friday night, sleepover, and we’d go thrifting all Saturday.

Fast forward all the way up until the party weekend. Mollie (who lives in NYC) had planned to come on Friday (I have off on Fridays) and the two of us would spend the day gathering all of the final supplies, flowers, and last minute gifts before heading over to the church to set up the room. Annnnnd because I love a good play-by-play, here is the grand sequence of events from Friday morning all the way until the big bash. Enjoy!

FRIDAY- 11:15am ish- I picked Mollie up from the train station and we started our adventure!

11:30am- First stop, Produce Junction for the flowers! You know how much I love Produce Junction (read all about it here) and how addicting it can be. However, it also happened to be the perfect place to snag a ton of flowers to fill the Parlor for the party.

12:00pm- Second stop, Lowes to see if they had any succulents (more on that later). No dice.

12:10pm- Third stop, Home Depot for the same thing. HD totally stole our hearts that day, coming through not only with the succulents, but also painting supplies (more on this also later). Sheesh, not even a post about a bridal shower can escape some sort of DIY reference around here!

12:30pm- Fourth stop, Home Goods for some supplies to go in the big bridesmaids gift to Summer.

1:00pm- Fifth stop, Five Below for the same.

1:10pm- Sixth stop, Panera Bread for some lunch to-go! All that racing around made us ravenous, even despite the Cliff bars I snagged as snacks before running out the door that morning.

1:30pm- Seventh stop, back to my house to grab a few things that I forgot to bring when I first left.

2:00pm- Eighth and final stop… to church to set up! Before starting to organize the room, Mollie and I had a Panera picnic on the floor and talked about which furniture should go where. When we finished up, it was go time. We moved and scooted and carried furniture for over an hour and a half before the room came together. Mid-way through though, things were looking… erm, scary.

After getting the layout down, we began to assemble the flowers into arrangements to stick around the room, add table cloths to the tables, and hang some of the decorations.

6:30pm- Ally arrives with coffee bar supplies and more decorations. At this point, we were scrambling. Mollie needed to catch a train back to the city and Ally and I had to be back at my house by 7:30pm to meet Summer for our girls’ night. Separately, of course so she would not know what we were up to. Mwahaha! 🙂

7:00pm- I drive Mollie to the train station so she can catch the train, then race back to the church to help Ally.

7:45pm- Summer arrives at our house and Mitch begins Phase 1 of Operation: Stall Summer. Ally and I are still hurrying to finish cleaning the room up, setting up the final things, and getting on the road.

8:00pm- Still at church. Mitch calls and I tell him to keep stalling, so he and Summer order the Chinese food and then go to pick it up. The story is that I had to run out for an errand and am now stuck in rush hour traffic getting back. Ally has long since been texting that she is also in major traffic coming from work.

8:15pm- I finally leave the church, while Ally finishes cleaning and turning off all the lights (so as to leave and arrive later than I do at home). I call Mitch and Phase 2 of Operation: Stall Summer commences- Mitch and Summer head back out to pick up a movie from Red Box.

8:35pm- I make it home and find Mitch and Summer back from getting the movie, with the Chinese food out and ready to eat. We start eating and save some for Ally “when she gets out of traffic”.

8:50pm- Ally arrives and joins us for dinner. Summer has officially bought the lie.

Phew.

The rest of the night was fun- we finished the Chinese food and then us girls watched Grease and headed to bed soon after.

SATURDAY- 9:00am- We all wake up and get ready for a day of thrifting. The goal was to start early because Ally “had somewhere she had to be” that afternoon. We wanted to throw Summer off the scent if she had any idea. We had anticipated wearing casual clothes for the day, so we had arranged for Mollie to grab a nice dress and pair of shoes from Summer’s house Friday night so Summer could change into something nice for the party after the big surprise. Ironically, Summer’s washer had broken the night before and the only clean clothes she had brought for Saturday was a dress with stockings. So Ally and I “decided to dress up too” and call it a fancy day out. We couldn’t believe that it worked out that nicely.
Meanwhile, the bridesmaids and moms had arrived at the church to set up any last details and start organizing the food.

9:45am- Ally, Summer, and I left the house and began our “day of thrifting”… we stopped at a yard sale and then headed over to Goodwill.

11:15am- At Goodwill, I got a “phone call” from someone at church who needed to be let into a locked closet. After having a fake conversation over the phone in front of the girls, I hung up and asked them if it would be ok if we swung by the church to open the door before continuing on with our day. And the line to get Summer inside? “Well, if you guys are going to be here, I’ve been moving furniture around in my office… want to see the new layout?” Not completely far fetched, huh? 🙂

11:35am- The final stop. We got to church, snagged a front row parking spot (which is a miracle for a municipal lot on a Saturday), and went to go “open the closet” before heading up to my office…. SURPRISE!

Here’s something I learned about Summer- I’m not sure if I would hire her to be in my army if I were ever creating one. You want to talk about fight or flight? She ran away from her own bridal shower! We had to push her into the room. 🙂 Granted, 5o unexpected people staring right at you and shouting “Surprise!” could scare anyone, I guess.

We spent the time eating, mingling, watching Summer open her (many many) gifts, playing a fun game, and enjoying each other’s company. More on all of that to come this week- the decorations, food, party game, and favors- all those details coming your way! The day was great and Summer said over and over again how loved and celebrated she felt. So in the end, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Happy Shower, Summer!

UPDATE: Want to see the rest of the party details? Check out what we did for the decorations HERE,  food, games and presents HERE, and the tips and tricks we learned along the way HERE!