May 15, 2015

Wedding Shower Planning


Last Saturday I threw my first ever wedding shower, and I am so happy with how everything turned out!

My brother-in-law, David, is getting married in July and J and I are both standing in the wedding. In a short period of time David's fiancée, Tracey, has become one of my favourite people. They've decided to have their wedding in our church which is older and hasn't had many updates over the past 15 to 20 years. In order to get the church ready for the wedding without spending a fortune David and Tracey have been doing a lot of the upgrades themselves. The church is looking amazing, but it's taking a bit of a toil on them and their wedding planning/preparation is a little bit more stressful than it is for the average couple. Because of the added stress I really wanted to make sure Tracey's shower was perfect and something she would really enjoy. (I like to think I was pretty successful.)

I decided to go with a morning shower and serve breakfast type foods. I think this surprised some of the guests, but it worked really well. Months ago Tracey had pinned an image of a yogurt bar to her wedding planning board on Pinterest but in the end they decided to go with a candy bar. Since I knew she liked the idea of a yogurt bar I knew that was something I wanted to incorporate. I served vanilla yogurt with three different types of berries and granola. I love the chalk board easel and galvanized pail that I picked up at Micheals. The serving dishes all came from Dollarama. It was a big hit! We also served four different types of muffins made by my mother-in-law, some fresh fruit, and mini cinnamon rolls.


For the decorations I tried to go with a bit of a rustic theme. I made two banners (one said "Thank you" and the other said "From Miss to Mrs") using a free printable. (You can find it here.) It was so simple, and I love how they turned out. One of the other bridesmaids painted the "62 days" canvas and I just love it, it worked perfectly.


I also made a display of pictures of David and Tracey using paper doilies, twine, and clothespins. (I totally got that idea from Pinterest, you can see the original post it came from here.)



I painted mason jars and filled them with artificial flowers for centre pieces, and I covered water bottles with pretty duct tape so they'd look a little classier sitting on the tables. (I used this tutorial for help painting the mason jars. I ended up deciding not to distress them because I liked how they looked as they were.)


For the favours I bought little bottles of shower gel and stuck tags on them that said "From Tracey's shower to yours" and for the guest book I had everyone sign a white plate with Sharpies. (I used the oil ones as I've found they tend to fade less than the regular ones.)


And of course we played games! Tracey's sisters created a "Who Knows her Best" game and a "He said, She said" game that used their past Facebook statuses. We also played wedding pictionary,  "What's in Your Purse" and of course we played the clothespin game. I put all of the prizes in brown paper bags with purple tissue paper so they would match the theme of the shower.



I will admit that the shower may have consumed my life for a couple months. I work full-time so it felt like every day off was spent doing something shower-related but I didn't mind in the least. It turns out I really love planning events like this! Luckily one of the girls at work is going to need a baby shower soon and my brother is getting married next year. ;-)

I hope that this post helped a little if you're planning a shower! Let me know if you use any of these ideas, or if you have any ideas for the next shower I'll need to throw.

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May 14, 2015

Birthday Ramblings


My third birthday... 30 years ago!
My birthday was on Tuesday. I turned thirty-three. 33! I don't know how that happened. Didn't I just turn 23?

J and I celebrated quietly at home. We had lobster and cheese cake and caught up on some TV shows we had missed. Not the most exciting birthday celebration, but life has been pretty hectic lately so I think it's what I needed.


We're going to continue the celebration Saturday night and go out for dinner with a couple of my girlfriends and their husbands. We're planning on checking out a new place called Truck Side, it's an indoor food truck food court. I'm pretty excited about it!

I'm not where I thought I'd be at 33, but I'm happy with where I am. Life is good, and I'm excited to see what this next year brings my way.

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May 11, 2015

Let's try this again!


I feel like life is finally starting to get back to normal so I'm going to try to carve out a little bit of "me" time each day for my blog. I had all kinds of ideas of the past two months so I'm hoping that a) I remember some of them since I didn't write anything down and b) I'm able to execute them the way I envisioned them while I was laying in bed, or in the shower, or on my commute to work. (The shower tends to be where I do my best thinking...)

One of the things that I'm really excited about is monthly guest posts I have lined up. Lauren, my best friend since forever has (finally!) started a blog. Lauren and I have been best friends since grade seven, despite being complete opposites in many ways. The biggest difference is that she's healthy. No, really. Lauren is a real inspiration when it comes to being active and eating properly. She is extremely passionate when it comes to fitness and eating properly and she's going to be sharing some of that passion over here once a month. I can't wait! (If you can't wait either you can check her out over at The Golden Graham Girl for now.)

 
Here's a quick snap shot of my week taken from my phone... 
1. The shower I was planning for my brother-in-law's fiancee finally happened on Saturday. Everything went really well, I was super pleased with how everything turned out. I'm actually planning a post about it because I stole a lot of great ideas off Pinterest that I want to share. 
2. It's finally barbecue season! We've had the longest winter ever but it's finally nice enough to barbecue. J made supper Saturday night as part of my early birthday present. 
3. I found a new summer-y "adult" beverage that I really enjoy. It's white peach and it's delicious. (PS: Doesn't my jamicure look fabulous? I recently started selling Jamberry and I love it!) 
4. Daisy has completely destroyed the back of our loveseat so this past week we finally went out to buy some new furniture. It's not being delivered until May 28th but I am so excited! I can't wait to actually be able to have company over again. 
5. My brother popped in for a visit and Daisy got so freaking excited. Uncle Jon is definitely her favourite human. 
6. Our passports arrived! J and I are leaving for our first big trip together in 28 days. We're heading to Washington, DC and West Virginia. I'm so excited! 

Hopefully you'll be hearing more from me soon. :-)

Mingle 240

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