Back in June I had the honor of hosting one of my best friend's baby showers! My friend Chelsea was every bit deserving of this special celebration because she is someone who celebrates others all the time; with her time, her energy, her resources and her creative gifts. It was a JOY to plan and execute this day for my friend, with the help of a couple other girlfriends!
I'm showing you around the baby shower today and giving you a couple of tips if you happen to be planning one for a friend. This day just happened to be the worst summer storm I've ever seen. As I was driving to set up the shower, the sky got dark and thunder and lightening started up. As soon as we parked, it was torrential downpours like I've never seen before!! I didn't even know what to do because if we unloaded our car in that, everything would have all been soaked. We waited it out, which delayed us a bit in setting up making for a pretty rushed hour of set up, but we got it done! It also made the photos of the shower a little harder to get because it was just so dark out, but my friend Ashley graciously came to photograph it.
Welcome to our Blooms & Bows baby girl shower :)
We held the shower at a local studio called Wealthy Street Studios. It's primarily a photography studio, but can be rented out for small events like this. It ended up being perfect! As guests walked in, the above balloon garland hung over the bench to drop gifts and we had a table set up for guests to do an activity, which I'll show you in a second.
The shower had about 35 people, so we had a lot of friends to accommodate! We set up 3 tables in the space and dressed them in these pretty and feminine
Event Theory linens. We did a pink polyester linen underneath the white, sheer linen with a pattern. I did a couple arrangements and budvases for each table centerpiece. We also rented these darling colored goblets from Event Theory which added such a special touch! Since it'd have been too much cost, we opted to borrow the chairs from our church ;)
The shower was from 2-4pm, so we did an array of drinks (our Bubbly Bar, stocked with both alcohol bubbly and non-alcoholic sparkling lemonades from Trader Joe's) and did a spread of crackers, cheeses, veggies, fruits, and desserts.
We had a couple of garnishes guests could spice up their drinks with, which made it extra fun.
This is my go-to appetizer for any party: a block of cream cheese with Trader Joe's Pepper Jelly dumped on top, surrounded by crackers. It's such a hit and takes 30 seconds to put together!
Something really sweet that we thought to do was include a little message on our shower invite asking each guest to bring an unwrapped hair bow or headband for baby girl, so we could help the new mama start her bow collection. My friend Chelsea is about the girliest you can get, so I knew this would make her heart smile!
The table at the front directed guests to write their name on a tag and pin up their bow on the string we had hanging next to the table. This way everyone could oohhh and awww over the adorable bows and see who it was from!
All the bows displayed were so cute!
Here's our sweet mama-to-be (who has since had her precious girl and I adore her!)
The girls who helped shower Chelsea: (isn't
Chelsea's dress perfect for a baby shower?!)
Chelsea and her mom (who happens to be my first ever design client when I moved to Michigan!)
It wouldn't be a party without the prettiest cookies known to man!! I always splurge on decorated sugar cookies for parties I throw from my friend
Madri's Cookie Kitchen. She knocks it out of the park every time. See those baby onesies?! TOO CUTE!
Because our friend loves flowers so much (she grows a cut flower garden every summer), we thought it'd be extra fun to have a bouquet bar as our favor for our guests. This was an interactive thing for guests to do so it kept the shower flowing. I had seen this as a party favor idea on Instagram and it worked so well-- highly recommend this!!
I probably over-spent on this ;) but I couldn't help it. Ha! #worthit. I went to my wholesaler and ordered flowers there, but I could have also just picked up flowers at TJ's the morning of the event. We did 2 types of greenery and 5 blooms (roses, alstroemeria, carnations, stock and spray roses), then we asked everyone to take 2 sprigs of greenery and 4 blooms of their choice. I should have got about 30 less blooms, but I wanted to be over-prepared. A couple people didn't make bouquets, which I was surprised by!
This sequin linen from Event Theory was to die for!
For the flower bar, we had snips for people to cut the stems, ribbon to tie the bouquets with and small plastic cups for them to fill with water so they'd stay alive on their drive home.
Another fun activity we did was have guests decorate wood baby blocks. Chelsea ended up displaying a few on the shelves in the nursery.
This was my example ;)
We had the guest of honor open her gifts under the awesome balloon garland (which didn't want to stay in place ha! I learned a couple things about balloon garlands, since this was my first one). Thankfully my friend Tara of
One Stylish Party walked me through how to make it. Her kits come with all the balloons, the string and the air pump! Next time I'm going to get the command hooks and tie the ends on there so I know they'll stay put.
She got such sweet things!
After gifts were opened, we played a quick game-- our only game of the shower! We previously asked Chelsea's husband 10 questions. They had to do with birth, baby knowledge and then personal questions like "who is going to be the tough parent?" We had him email his answers to us, then asked Chelsea the same questions and she had to guess what her husband would have answered. Everyone got a kick out of their answers, so I'd say this was a hit if you're trying to avoid the more "cheesy" shower games.
We ended the shower by having one of the ladies pray over Chelsea for a safe delivery, healthy baby and many blessings over them as they bring a new life into the world.
After it was over, Ashley took some beautiful pictures of Chelsea and her bump, but I had to get in a few!
I just love this sweet friend of mine. She's one of the best gifts God has given me since moving to Michigan! She's an easy one to celebrate.
Here are some things I learned along the way!
PS. Here's a bonus for you today! Since Chelsea had her baby, I wanted to show you the sweet nursery she put together for her girl, Penelope. A couple weekends before she was born we went shopping to get final touches then I helped her put it all together and get things hung. I didn't design it, just helped execute. Chelsea has a great eye and made some super adorable decor for it!!
I loved this idea she had of stretching the bows she got from the shower over glass jars and filling the jars with the remainder of them! So cute!
She made these floral hoops by hot gluing faux flowers from Hobby Lobby on gold hoops. Love them!
Isn't it SWEET?!
Let me know if you have any questions about the baby shower details!
xoxo
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