Johannah's Bridal Shower

One of the only reasons to lament my daughter not living in Utah anymore? Sister Mecham.  When I think back to the absolutely classic, beautiful, elegant, heart-warming bridal shower she threw for Glo, I literally sit in awe.  Her talents and abilities are unmatched!

Believe me, I was hoping anyone would volunteer to throw Hannah a bridal shower.  Being only two weeks post-op, I knew it was going to be very difficult for me to stand up let alone host the thing.  I even asked several people about me throwing it, thinking they would tell me it wasn't up to me, but do you know what they ALL said? Of course I should host it.

This is what we do, baby!

So I took a deep breath and decided to do it the best I could do it, knowing that I would never equal what Becky Mecham could do.

Since Hannah's wedding colors were Tigers colors, and since Hannah loves baseball, I figured a baseball-themed bridal shower would be perfect for her.  And she agreed! But looking online, guess what? There aren't too many baseball-themed bridal showers thrown (or at least posted on Pinterest).  In the end, it didn't matter.  We go to games all the time.  I know baseball.  And I did find one blog with some ideas thankfully.

In all of this, Glo was there beside me.  She really is an invaluable resource with her graphic design skills.  We made a list of everything we needed to order and create so that when the shower came around, the family could execute my vision.

We decided to throw the shower here at Casa Fiesta ;-) As Glo says, our home is not set up for parties, but somehow we keep getting requests to host parties....so it must not be too bad.  I didn't think the guest list would be too extensive so I figured we could get a couple of tables and set them up underneath the decks for shade.  If the weather was really nice, we could move them out into the side yard.

Glo started on the invitations right away.  I gave her a few ideas, and she ran with them.  I keep telling her that she should work freelance, because her skills are amazing!  Seriously, everybody just died when they saw the invitations, and that's a good thing, because as we all know, we judge how good a party will be by the invitation ;-)

Decorations.  These are literally where I am the most insecure.  Glo and I ordered baseball banners in Tigers colors along with Tigers-colors lanterns.  I had the brilliant idea to create a false ceiling under the patio decks so that we could hang them anywhere from the ceiling which really did work out well.

Too, I went to Amazon and found baseball planters for flowers, and circle confetti and little easels for signs.  I really didn't know what I was doing, but I figured it would come together!  What I didn't plan on was for there to be a rainstorm the night before which left us with a nice cool but strong breeze the day of the party.  We ended up taping the confetti and circles to the tables so that they wouldn't blow away.

Mr. Knapp and the choir kids came in clutch cutting out all of those circles for me.  And the paper was "donated" by Millennium Middle School.

When I go to a party, I like to have something to do so I hired the caricature artist, Bob, that I had met at the Tigers game just a month earlier.  I even paid a bit extra to have baseball bodies printed on the paper that he would use along with the line "She hit a home run!"

Can you tell who it is? Our very own Glo <3

I wanted to use the baseball card theme as well, so Glo designed baseball card posters to hang on the walls and to include in the favors.

And yes, favors.  What is more Americana than popcorn at a baseball game? Okay, hot dogs, but we'll get to those in a minute.  

I thought it would be fun to have the popcorn in Tigers souvenir cups along with a baseball card, but as the positive RSVPs started coming in, I realized that we didn't have enough cups.  Fine, we could go buy more drinks at the baseball games between now and the shower, but John had a better idea.  Just dumpster dive at the games and collect all the cups we could possibly need.  And Gordon was in on this scheme as well.  Just one game later, and we had over 30 cups!

But the baseball cards that we included in the favors? These were seriously the cutest things.  And in true Glo/Mommy form, I wrote the copy and she designed them.

Finally, the food.  I wanted it to feel like everyone was at a baseball game, so our plates for food? The square brown boxes we get at games.  We had four different flavors of brats (thank you, Costco) with grilled onions.  Cheese and John took over the grills and kept the line short.  

The family also pitched in and made fruit skewers that morning (so cutlery needed!)  Not really baseball food, but I figured everyone would appreciate something healthy to eat.

We also had peanuts in bags, pop in beer-like bottles, and for dessert, we served ice cream in the little plastic hats.

For the guest book, everyone was invited to sign a baseball (with bat-shaped pens that Glo found).  And then they were invited to keep their pen and grab a stat card.  This was a major idea I stole from the one party posted online.  It was another cute activity for guests to do if they didn't want to socialize.

But holy smokes, everyone socialized.  It was really sweet to see our worlds colliding with church people and work people.

And pretty much everyone came in their jerseys...or some form of baseball fashion ;-)

I think we all were overwhelmed with the generosity of everybody.  They came bearing GIFTS! Some fun things, some useful.  And people who weren't able to come still sent a shower gift.

In the end, I couldn't have been more thankful for my husband and kids.  I still had a drain in from my surgery, and I could barely stand.  They listened to everything I said and checked everything off the list that needed to be done.  And when the compliments started rolling in (things like "I've never been to a cuter shower...and I've been to a lot of them"), I gave a lot of credit to the Kennedys.  It's such a testament that we are always there for each other.

 

Even in the pool afterwards to just chill and relax ;-)