My Bridal Shower Day – Love, Friends and Family
A bridal shower is one of the most special moments for a bride-to-be. It is a day that is meant to literally “shower” you with love, well wishes, congratulations and also a time for the ladies to get together and gift you and your fiance for all the things you may need as you start your lives together as husband and wife. A bridal shower at its core to me has always been more about the people than about the gifts. My fiance and I have lived together for over 4 years, so at this point we did have a good majority of the major home items we needed, but everyone said it was something that I should have. I always have been a bit shy with receiving gifts and having people go out of their way for me. I am more of a ‘giver’ than a ‘receiver’ so it’s hard for me to know how much time and money would go into my bridal shower. Also, at the time of my shower, my mom was in her very advanced stages of her lung cancer. I had so many mixed emotions about continuing with having a shower, but my mother insisted, saying that I deserved one and I should have one. It was important to my mother, therefore it was even more important to me.
My bridal shower was held on March 29th which was also two days after my birthday. It was a great way to celebrate both occasions with my closest girlfriends, co-workers and family. I invited around 65 people to my bridal shower and we had almost 95% of people attend, it was amazing. Most of the brides now a days know about their shower ahead of time. I don’t know many brides who like to be completely surprised, but I only knew of the place, the date and I also helped to make my invitations. My maid of honor, future mother in law and stepmother planned my bridal shower. It was amazing; all the details from the flower centerpieces, to the custom favor boxes that matched my shower invitations, to the homemade chocolates inside and cookie platters – not one detail was overlooked. I have to say that my bridal shower was the best medicine for me while going through the loss of my mother. I know in my heart she was there in presence with me during this time. I felt her all around me, smiling and hugging me, giving me the strength I needed. It was so hard to have this special moment without her physically there, but I knew she was there with me.
The amount of love for me and my fiance in the room was overwhelming. John joined me and brought me to the venue and walked in and introduced himself to everyone. He was a trooper through and through and everyone was so happy to see him. My bridal shower was held in the early afternoon on a Sunday which was the perfect time. It was held at Mamma Vittoria on Franklin Avenue in Nutley, New Jersey. They did an amazing job with the service and the food was raved about for days! They did a delicious antipasto dish, calamari, breads, pasta and a full buffet station with amazing food. Everyone said they were so full and the food was so delicious – they did an amazing job and I would highly recommend them for any shower or party you plan to have (ask for Nella who is the owner.) My future mother in law also made a ton of trays of homemade Italian styled cookies for each table to enjoy during cake and coffee.
My maid of honor out did herself with my decorations and decor. She got the most beautiful cake made for me from Bovella’s Pasty Shoppe in Westfield, New Jersey. The cake was coconut flavored cake with Bavarian cream filling and frosting. The colors matched my wedding theme perfectly – blush pink and golds and creams. The cake was so good, in fact, everyone raved about the coconut flavor as being so light and tasty that I have since changed my wedding cake to mimic this exact recipe! Since it was also my birthday weekend Sylvia also even got me a birthday cake and had it brought out for everyone to sing Happy Birthday to me. It was so beautiful, everything about my cakes was delicious! My cake table was complete with hand made crafts of our initials, lanterns and photos of me and John and candles.
On each table was a picture frame with a quote inside. Each table had something that John loves about me in the frame, which Sylvia had asked John to submit the week before. It was so touching to me to see the answers he gave, and I loved walking around to each table to see what it said. The tables also had a flower centerpiece, votive candles and all around the room was blush pink, beige and cream colored decorations. My favors were made to match my invitations perfectly and were filled with hand made chocolates that had nuts, fruit and coconut shavings in them.
The dress I wore was from GUESS (link here) and I found it in San Diego while on a business trip the week before. My shoes were Christian Louboutin called Bianca in Nude (click here). I wanted to wear something white but also something that was fun, full and this dress fit the bill! It was strapless but fit so well and was not see through, which most white dresses were that I had been ordering online or trying on in stores.
I got so many amazing gifts from our registry for our new home. When it came to making my registry I wanted to make sure it was practical, things we would actually use and not just things people put on a registry for the sake of putting them there. We didn’t register for fine china or anything over $400. We kept it simple and the most expensive thing on my registry was my KitchenAid mixer, which my mother in law insisted I have. Otherwise, everything was very affordable and was stuff we really needed. We are registered at Bed Bath & Beyond and Crate & Barrel. I found both to be very easy to navigate and are both very good with return or exchanges in case we got doubles of things (which we did) but it was so simple to make returns to get other items we needed. We also included our registry info on our invitations and on our wedding website which I built and have been updating www.adrienneandjohn.com
We had some cute games to play but nothing that was really cheesy. I loved the Etsy cards that my girlfriends had made for each table. We had a “what’s in your purse” game complete with prizes that were made of great little goodies. We also had a “share a memory of you and the bride” card which I loved reading days later from everyone. There was also a “date jar” where everyone recommended some great ideas for me and John to do in the future. I have to say I was thrown such an amazing bridal shower, so amazing that no one wanted to leave! It lasted almost five hours, how amazing is that. In the end it was one day I will never forget and it was so wonderful to meet so many of the ladies who will be at my wedding. It’s a great time to really get to know some people you haven’t met yet or seen in a long time. It was also so nice to see family members get together and talk who haven’t in awhile either. It’s true what they say, weddings really do bring families together.
Links to some items in this blog post:
♥ My bridal shower invitations were made on Shutterfly – link here
♥ My dress from GUESS – link here
♥ My Bianca Nude Christian Louboutin heels from Nordstrom.com – link here
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