A sweet and simple bridal shower

I love planning showers. I feel like I have more room for creativity and fun themes and I love crafting all of the details and the invites. So fun!

I thought I would start sharing some shower ideas with you, starting with a sweet bridal shower I threw for my friend Amy last fall.

When it came to inspiration for Amy's shower, I took a look at her wedding colors and her engagement story. Her fiance, Andrew, proposed while they were kayaking. The stopped for a moment, and he had a friend who was scuba diving pop up from the water with a ring. How cute is that? Their first date was also kayaking, so it made sense to incorporate that. So, for the invitations, I made a simple invite with a kayak on the bottom:

I made the kayak and oar out of fabric, then cut out the paper "a + a" (for Andrew + Amy) on my cricut . I glued them all together, taped it on the invite and then photocopied it onto cardstock. This a great way to cheat handmaking invitations. I was not going to have time to cut out all of the kayak's by hand, so this still give a cute handmade look, without the hours of work. I copied two to a page, cut them and then glued them to a shimmery pink cardstock backing. 

 

For the shower decor, we decided to go simple and keep to the "a + a " theme in the colors of her wedding: mainly a watermelon pink with accents of green. It was very fun and cheery.

I made this sign for the front door using Amy Butler paper from Michaels and my trusty Cricut.

It was a brunch, so we set up a small food table with homemade coffee cake, scones (made by me- my first time and they turned out delicious!), fruit and cupcakes (who doesn't have cupcakes with brunch?).

I made the labels with my cricut and double side taped them on to the platters.

My sweet friend Shae, who is an amazing baker, made the cupcakes for us. They were delicious! To make them extra cute, I cut lots of little "a + a"'s with my cricut (surprise, surprise) and we glued them on to toothpicks and stuck them in the cupcakes. I loved how they turned out!

In addition to coffee, tea and water, we also served pink sparkling lemonade. This is my go-to drink for showers. You can find it at Trader Joes.

We had all of the ladies write words of wisdom or encouragement for the Bride-to-be. How cute is that paper?

We set the tables in a U-shape so that everyone was close together. It created a great intimate feel.

Simple cheap placesettings, all purchased from Target. 

My good friend Holly, who co-hosted the shower with me, made the sweet arrangements, which we placed on sheets of the same shimmery pink paper from the invites to give a little more pop to the table.

Good old lanterns always make a yard more festive.

For favors, we put colorful jelly bellies in little favor tins from Target. To dress them up, I glued on the "a + a" logo. As you can tell, my Cricut was my best friend for this party.

I had extra a's cut out, so we sprinkled them on the tables as confetti.

I loved this banner I made, but I couldn't get a good picture of it because it was so windy.

We even incorporated the logo on the ground with a little chalk:

Since the shower was outside, we offered guests white paper parasols. (We have these available for rent or sale by the way)

Overall, it was a sweet, simple and fun shower.

I have often been asked for ideas for shower games (specifically those that do not involve toilet paper). My favorite shower game is a get to know the bride & groom game. We do a video interview with the Groom, in which we ask him guests about his bride (her favorites, what his favorite things about her are, and some other funny ones thrown in) and then turn it into a DVD. At the shower, we ask the bride the questions and she has to guess what he would say. After she gives her answer, we show his answer on the TV. It is always really funny and sweet. The guests have to guess beforehand how many the bride will get right and the guest that gets the right number wins.

Another fun simple one is to have guests list as many movies and books with the words "wedding" or "bride" in the title. They have a minute or two and the guest with the most at the end wins. I have to say, when I am a guest at a shower, I always win this one. I have an unfair advantage- most guests don't think about wedding planning books.

I'll be back in the next few days with more shower theme ideas. In the meantime, don't forget to enter to win a copy of Ceremony!