Goin to the Chapel and We're...

As I have mentioned in a previous post, my sweet cousin Katie is getting married in November.  Saturday, my family and I threw her a wedding shower at my house.  I had such a fun time planning this party.  I am not going to lie, I spent HOURS on Pinterest finding ideas and planning every detail.  This was pretty much a Pinterest party.  Here are a few photos by Lisa Pittman of the event, along with links to some of the projects I created.

I wanted this party to be as colorful as possible.  I think we succeeded!  This is a photo of the table.  At the end of the table, you can see one of the decorations I made.  I made several tissue paper poofs and used them around the living room and one one the table.  Also on the table are Garlic Chicken Puffs, made by my aunt Jerri.

Here we see a photo of Nutella Cake in a Jar.  I was in charge of this particular project, and at first I was worried that this was going to be an epic failure, but after only a few failures, I finally got them to work.  The recipe on Pinterest calls for a pint sized jar, and I used baby food jars instead, which needed only 45 seconds in the microwave.  I was really worried that they were going to stink, but apparently they were awesome, because they were all gone and neither me or my Aunt got one at all!

One of my favorite food items at the shower were mini Pop Tarts on a Stick, made by my mom.  They were so good!  And apparently pretty easy, though the strawberry jam did seep out a bit around the stick.  I like that you can personalize these with sprinkles that would match your decor.

Sometimes the simple things are the things that turn out to be quite beautiful.  My aunt and I were trying to figure out what to do for beverages, and at a shopping trip to Aldi, she found sparkling juices which turned out to be the perfect accompaniment to our colorful food.

I hate the idea of games at showers, but we did have 2 things that gave Katie something to take home to remember the shower, and also got everyone involved (one intentional, and one not).   In the invitations, I sent a recipe card to everyone invited, asking them to write down their favorite recipe to share with Katie.  I was happily surprised that almost everyone brought theirs back for her!  I think this is a great thing to do at a kitchen shower.  One of our cousins even brought all of the kitchen utensils necessary to make her recipe as her gift.  I thought that was a great idea!

 Our other "activity" was quite unintentional, but ended up being hilarious and crazy fun.  I found a great wedding shower card for Katie at Border's book store - 60% off even!  Do you remember the old fish fortune tellers that would curl or flip based on the temperature of your hand?  Well, this was the same idea, only with a groom instead of a fish, and the fortune was about your relationship.

We all laughed so hard at the fortunes of the married women in the room.  Mine was "true love forever."  Big shock there ;)  The ones that were so funny were my cousin Charla, whose "groom" flipped  over about 3 times, meaning "I didn't know you were so... umm... adventurous." And my sweet Meme, who's groom flipped over as well.  She was a little embarrassed because we laughed so hard some of us were in tears.

And of course, as always, my daughter was a little ham and had a great time.  She is going to love her birthday and Christmas - ripping all the paper and playing with the boxes!

All in all, I think the shower was a smashing success.  So happy for you, KK!