Lauren's Bridal Shower - Pretty Purple Tea Party

We kicked off Memorial Day weekend with a bridal shower celebration honoring the sweet bride-to-be, Lauren!  The shower was lovely and so, so much fun.  Unfortunately, I didn't have much luck capturing the decorative details as the lighting in the room didn't agree with my little digital camera and unimpressive photography skills.  Good thing the really important details can't be captured by a camera anyway:  smiles, hugs, joyful tears, and happy memories.

First, a picture of the mother-of-the-bride, my mother-in-law and co-host, the beautiful Lauren, and me!  You can't tell from the picture, but Lauren's dress was adorable and matched the purple theme!

So, about this "purple theme" . . . Lauren's key wedding color is eggplant, so I decided to lighten up the shower with a spectrum of purple shades.  We ordered the main invitation from Wedding Paper Divas, and I created a coordinating enclosure card with registry information and directions that also matched some other details of the shower.


Shower guests were greated with paper lanterns, pinwheels and poms hung from shepherd's hooks.  I purchased the lanterns from Michaels, and learned how to make the Poms from Martha's tutorial.  The pinwheel tutorial is also somewhere in the "Martha universe" but I couldn't find it this time around (I made similar pinwheels for our wedding).

An absolutely gorgeous bouquet anchored the placecard table!  Complete credit is due to my mother-in-law and her work with the florist.  I've never seen so many purple flowers - hydrangea, roses, lilacs, sweet pea.  So impressive! 

The placecards were set on a mirrored table, so the pictures are a bit overwhelming.  I wrapped plain glass votive holders and matchbooks in various combinations of six coordinating patterns of purple scrapbook paper I found at Michael's.  I love the vintage feel of these patterns, and how they worked with the afternoon tea format of the shower.  These votive/matchbook cuties would also make affordable wedding favors.  

It's difficult to see, but I made confetti out of the Michael's specialty paper with a small, scallop circle punch.

A shot of the lovely tablescape (before the tea sandwiches and scones were set).

I used large rubber stamps on the vintagey specialty paper to create the table numbers.

I used simple paper doililes to dress up the menu cards on each table.  Eggplant and lavendar cardstock and purple "pearl" stickers tied in the color scheme.

I created a "Lauren & Cesar" banner to frame the gift table.  I alternated plain lavendar cardstock and a variety of the purple-hued specialty paper for each flag.  After some color-editing in Microsoft Paint, I used a 3-inch punch with these letter templates from Martha.

Favors for our guests were Swirlz cupcakes in chocolate, carrot and banana nutella (YUM!).

I placed each cupcake in a takeout box and created labels with the "Cheers!" message and the couple's names and wedding date.  I couldn't resist using these adorable purple labels from Paper Source.  Each box was tied with a sepia-toned photo of the happy couple.

Guests were asked to leave messages for Lauren in her "bucket of wisdom."

And, last but not least, every bride must be "hazed" with some sort of a shower game, right?!  We played "20 Questions" as a way for guests to test their knowledge about the bride and groom and their relationship.  The "winners" were rewarded with bottles of champagne (you can't see it, but I found bottles with purple foil at Whole Foods!).

 

Best wishes to Lauren & Cesar!  Can't wait for the wedding!