Summer’s Shower: The Details

Here it goes, folks. The nuts and bolts of how Summer’s shower came together. Fair warning: You will understand zero words of this post if you do not take a quick second (ok, it’s long… might take you more like seven seconds) to read yesterday’s post. If you’re feeling lazy and don’t want to, well here’s the brief synopsis. My brother is marrying this girl:

Her name is Summer and we threw her a surprise bridal shower this past weekend. And you get a front row seat at all of the ins and outs of the day… man, what could be better?! Must be your lucky day. 🙂 As I said yesterday, we really wanted the party to feel like Summer. All of the things she loves with all of the people she loves- and all in the same room. So we channeled Pinterest. Of course. And then went to town tweaking and making plans for a shower filled to the brim of all things Summer.

THE THEME

Think a beautiful bunch of muted wildflowers meets a good book at a tea party wearing a gorgeous lace dress. That’s what we were going for. At the end of this post, you can tell us if we nailed it orrrrrr not. I don’t know- that scenario is a pretty tall order to fill! Here are some pictures we used as inspiration:

THE INVITES

A friend of Ally’s (thanks Erica!) generously offered to design the invites to incorporate the colors and theme so we could let our guests know the who, what, where, and when of the party. Sorry for the partially edited out parts, but I didn’t think our lovely maid of honor wanted all of her info out on the WorldWideWeb for the crazies to find. Who knows, though, she may be a daredevil like that! I decided to play it safe. 🙂

THE FLOWERS

We took our cues from Summer’s very own wedding ideas. Armed with pictures that Summer had been pinning, Mollie and I stormed into Produce Junction to get our hands on whatever inventory they had. We made out like bandits- scoring two dozen roses, 3 bundles of blue-gray spiky things (I’m patenting that term so don’t even try and steal it) , 2 packs of baby’s breath, 3 bouquets of hydrangeas, 1 dozen dusty pink carnations, and a bundle of red-ish berries… all for just $42! Score.

We then used a variety of glass jars and other “containers” to hold arrangements and scattered these throughout the room- on the food tables, the coffee bar, side tables, and window sills. It is really amazing what fresh flowers can do to a room. Conveniently, the colors of the Parlor tied in very nicely with our color scheme so the room looked beautiful to begin with. But the flowers. The flowers just made everything come alive!

THE DECORATIONS

In addition to the flowers, we worked a lot with the “book” theme. We stacked them under flowers and had them resting on tables. The pages of an old book was cut into paper hearts, which were sprinkled on every flat surface we could find.

My mom crafted a large piece of art to look like an open book and inside were silhouettes of Beau and Summer with the words “Once upon a time… and they lived happily ever after.” Uh, cool, huh? She’s crafty like that. 🙂

She also used book pages to create a mini book-and-heart garland, which we hung over the giant mirror in the middle of the room. You can see it a bit in this photo…

And even better in this one:

But my favorite, by far, was the card catalog. Mom owns this really neat, oldish card catalog, which we had sitting on a white lace covered table. After draping some more lace and a tan runner on top, we added the big book and some flowers (and more heart confetti, of course!).

The drawers were used to hold cards for guests to write advice and prayers for the couple on and in some drawers we added overflowing bunches of flowers. In the end, it was just beautiful- I wanted to sit and stare at it all day! We added spots of lace (Summer’s dress and the bridesmaids dresses all are made of lace) wherever we could- as table cloths, draped over things, etc.

We also sneaked in some book references with a bit of chalk art atop our coffee bar (more about that tomorrow)…

…And here and there on other surfaces. 🙂

THE “GUESTBOOK”

We didn’t have a guest book, but we did want to make sure to give Summer’s friends and family a chance to share their well wishes. My mom came up with the idea to continue the book theme by using homemade library cards for guests to write down their advice for both the bride and the groom.

She just made them on the computer and printed out a bunch on cardstock. We stashed them in the drawers of the card catalog with pens for guests to use.

THE FAVORS

Guests got to take home a little something to remember the shower by… and what better symbol to represent the day than a bookmark? My art teacher of a mother made each one by painting watercolor flowers on them and the girls helped to write famous literary quotes on the back. They were simply stunning and guests had fun choosing a favorite to take home with them. You can see them tucked in one of the card catalog drawers below…

And here is a shot of what they looked like close up:

Whew! I think that about wraps it up for today… details galore! We’ll be back tomorrow to wrap this party up with some games, presents, and any other odds and ends I might have forgotten to share along the way. Stay tuned… you’re not going to want to miss this one- especially if I can get a copy of my brother answering trivia questions about Summer. On camera. In front of 50+ guests.

HIL. arious. 🙂