“THE” Wedding Shower of the Year

Well, now it’s all behind us and just a happy memory, but Saturday was quite a busy day as we prepared for, participated in and then cleaned up from Elly’s wedding shower. This was an all girls event, although my husband did “crash” the party searching for something to eat (and yes we did share goodies with him!) and then later he returned (poor guy) to help move things and clean up and then take poor tired Elly home with all her goodies.

It was an elegant, traditional and fun shower and as Elly herself said, every detail was well thought out. Elly’s bridesmaids outdid themselves with creativity. As you see the photos, they speak for themselves. I will try to explain some of the photos. Since it’s been a million years since I’ve been to a wedding shower in the US, I am not sure what takes place nowadays and am not sure how different they might be from our Brazilian traditions.

At the planning meeting for the shower, we decided on a “picnic” theme, together with sunflowers, Elly’s favorite flower.  So we had red and white checkered clothes for the picnic part and of course real sunflower arrangements, as well as fake ones on the rest of the decor.

In Brazil these are not “showers” , but “teas”, so of course we had to serve iced tea. Also, they are called “kitchen” teas, so our theme had to include kitchen items, thus the handmade chocolates with wooden spoons, cutting boards, etc. Her beautiful cake also reflected that. Her sister, Sissy, designed the cake and it was spectacular (and looked delicious, but I had eaten so much other junk I just didn’t dare taste it). The doll on the cake is supposed to vaguely resemble Elly.

The table of cake, candies and sweets was just fabulous. Enough to make anyone’s mouth water.  Those who know me well, know how much I love sweets and most especially jelly beans. Everytime I went by I swiped a coconut jelly bean. In the photo I look a little frazzled and I was. It was hotter than hot that day, and I was just exhausted from the heat, so I had just been standing in front of a fan so my hair is more than a bit windblown!

We didn’t have just sweets, though, as we also provided a light supper, with a yard long sandwich, cheeses, dips, quiche, cold cuts, etc. You could eat as much or little as you wanted. We had way, way too much food, of course, as it was all delicious and we ended up rather stuffed. The shower, by the way, was held in the party room of our building. It is quite ample and has all the tables and chairs, etc. so it was nice to have plenty of room and all. It did mean that I kept the elevator busy running up and down getting things we were missing or needing.

Consequently I missed the moment Elly arrived, but I did catch her shortly afterwards and she was so excited. The room really was lovely. As you can see behind her, her mother-in-law had a photo of the couple blown up and framed (hey, I can’t resist adding this was my idea!) and it made a nice centerpiece for the table where people wrote messages to the couple. You can see Elly posing with her mom and mother-in-law in front of the table. I got so caught up in the fun and all, I just forgot to take pictures of everything, including the big decorated pans where we put the presents. That was such a cute idea.

We played a lot of games and that was fun. I have tried to make a small movie containing the photos of some of the funnier shots of the games. I hope you can see them and enjoy them. When everything ended we were all tired and happy. And a little astonished to realize that it is only a little over 3 weeks til the wedding. Hope you enjoyed virtually attending the shower.