I am so excited to share today’s bridal shower blog post with you all! Last weekend I threw my best friend a bridal shower that was filled to the brim with the prettiest details and a few of her very favorite things. You all were so sweet and wanted to see more pictures on InstaStories after I posted one last Saturday. That was the only picture I took on my phone because I tried to get as many as I could on my actual camera. I’m pleasantly surprised with how the pictures came out considering there was no natural light available to me.
The shower was held in the wine barrel room at Sonoma Harvest and since the room is filled with wine barrels and pretty neutral it yielded some good color palette options. The bride loves anything and everything that is mint or pink so I knew those were great shower color options along with a darker peacock color mixed in. Her wedding colors are mint, pink, and navy so I wanted to do something a little different. I opted for the peacock color instead of navy because it does have a different look to it than a navy does. I also opted for blush because I personally love blush accents. The bride is opting for more of a cotton candy pink for the wedding day so doing a blush tone also helped keep the colors a little different from the big day.
One of my favorite things I had did for the bridal shower was have custom signs made. I personally feel like it added an extra special touch and looked so pretty paired with the rest of the decor. I could have made these signs myself on Photoshop but to be honest, it would have taken me HOURS….and Ryan probably would have had to fix whatever mess I would have created. Etsy has such great options if you want signs like these made. I opted for someone to create the images for me and then I took them to Kinko’s to print myself and then stuck them in frames. This is the Etsy Shop that I used and thought she was great, she turned the images around in almost minutes, you can’t beat that!
Ryan played the role of my assistant for the set-up the day of the shower and did this “LOVE” flower arrangement himself. I was running short on time and didn’t have time to do it myself so he took “creative lead” and filled the sign with what he thought looked good. I actually think he did a really good job with it. This picture was at the very end of the shower so the flowers don’t look quite as fresh as they did when he first did the arrangement but I like to think I trained him well, he he he.
All the flower arrangements were done by yours truly and Ryan now thinks I should start a side business because he couldn’t get over how good they looked. I have to agree…these were some of my favorite arrangements that I’ve done to date. However, keeping flowers alive when you have to transport them from the Flower Mart in San Francisco to your home in Oakland to put them in water buckets, to then transport them to Vacaville (about an hour away from Oakland) to put the arrangements together, and then transporting them to the shower location was challenging. The day of the shower was 105 degrees so I also learned a lesson that it’s really hard to keep flowers alive in that kind of heat!
For food, there were multiple options, a dessert buffet and a Chick-fil-A buffet. While I forgot to get pictures of the Chick-fil-A table there was a fun sign that said, “Chick-fil-A because love is tender” (get it, because chicken can be tender…?! Haha). It’s one of the brides favorites so it was the perfect thing to serve…who doesn’t love themselves some Chick-fil-A?! The dessert buffet was filled with fun baked donuts from High Voltage Donuts and the lemon bars and vanilla bean bundt cakes were made by my mom. The bride loves my moms lemon bars so I knew they had to make an appearance. I don’t know if she’ll let me but if she does I’m going to try and share the lemon bar recipe on the blog because everyone needs these lemons bars in their life. Same for the vanilla bean cake!
I couldn’t believe how many people loved and had questions about the Miller sign on the InstaStories sneak peak. Honestly, I couldn’t agree more, it’s so darn cute! I loved the idea of having this sign made and hanging it on these wooden walls because not only is it cute decor for the shower but it made for something that could be repurposed in the bride and grooms home. This is the Etsy Shop I found the sign through. I thought I ordered the 3′ one but it’s actually the 4′. I’m so glad I made that mistake because the 4′ really made a statement on the barn walls.
How cute are these favors?! I actually wasn’t planning on doing favors at all because I feel like people never take them or they never use them if they do take them. One of the other bridesmaids took over the favors and created these little loose leaf tea test tubes that were perfect for our tea loving bride.
This cotton candy champagne display was a Pinterest find that I was nervous to execute because we all know that Pinterest fails always seem to be more common than a Pinterest success….or is that just me?! Asking for a friend…..! The bride loves cotton candy so this was a definite must to pour the champagne over. I opted for the Rosé Wine flavored cotton candy that I found at Chocolate Story Book. I will say that this is best to do right before the party starts and to serve right away. The cotton candy starts to “de-fluff” and harden the longer it stays out on the glasses. Just be prepared that you are going to be a little sticky when serving this beverage.
I don’t know why but I LOVE cute and custom cocktail napkins and I mean LOVE! These cute napkins I found at Stationary Studio. I personally think you can get the best bang for your buck with their napkins vs. other stores that I found on Etsy.
Along with the champagne there was the brides favorite drink from Chick-fil-a that’s a diet lemonade and the unsweetened tea….if you all haven’t had it yet then you should. It was so good! There was also water with strawberries and basil that the bride drinks on the regular. I’m not really into flavored water like that because I hate when there are things floating around in my water but everyone seemed to love it. If you’re looking for a way to spice your water up I’d give it a try.
The cotton wreath on the barn walls were a sweet little detail I thought of so the bride could have a piece of her grandfather there. He was a cotton farmer so it was the perfect sentimental touch that I knew she would love.
I didn’t list out all the sources for where I got everything because there are so many small details. The bride will also read this and I’d like to keep my secrets from her as much as possible. If you want to know where something specific is from, feel free to ask and I’ll be more than happy to share the details with you. All of the event rentals came from Bright, if you’re in California or Arizona be sure to check us out if you have an upcoming event!
I hope you all love this bridal shower as much as I do and I’m so happy to share something that I poured so much love, thought, and time into for my bestie!
