Lindsay's French Bridal Shower

One of my best friends Lindsay is getting married in August and so the MOH and I threw her a most fabulous bridal shower (if I do say so myself) yesterday. We went with a French theme, since that is where they are going on the 'moon. I had so much fun making the food and planning the details:

I actually saw these pink tissue-paper flowers (they look a lot like peonies to me, and I know Linds loves them) here first and really wanted to try and incorporate them somehow. They ended up in a basket on the table with some framed French pictures I got at Ikea. (an extra favor for the bride)

We chose the colors to be black and pink- not sure if that's particularly French (honestly, I don't know much about French culture) but we liked it for the shower. I loved these octagonal plates I got at Zurchers. Just HAD to use them :)

I made these artichoke heart tartlets and though yummy, they didn't have any pop of color, (beige pie crust, beige filling) so I added some chives from my garden on some and used paprika and parsley on the others. I think they turned out great! We also served a veggie platter, "croissant-wiches", fruit skewers, baguette and brie with tomato and...

creme brulee! I don't have a torch and didn't have enough ramekins for everyone, so I made them up in cupcake foils and used the broiler instead. It worked great, except they were a bit squishy to handle. Still haven't thought of a great solution for that. Yummy though :)

After several runs of creme brulee, I have a LOT of egg whites left over, so at the last minute, I decided to make some pecan-meringue cookies. They were yummier than I expected- I'm not usually a huge fan of meringue.

Mel absolutely wanted to have eclaires, so we ordered them from a bakery. I'd still like to try to make my own though. Any tried-and-true recipes out there?

Our drink garnishes were just blue-berries and raspberries on a toothpick, and frozen. We originally wanted blackberries and raspberries (our colors) but then Mel went with blueberries for more contrasting shape. I think they're very cute :) We served wine and for those of us who don't drink, we had pink lemonade and water.

We played three games:
Game #1- an on-going game where all the guests were given 5 rings (dollar store) and were not allowed to say "cute", "wedding" or call Lindsay anything but "the blushing bride". If they were caught using any of these taboo words, the catcher got to take one of the "catchee's" rings away. At the end of the shower, the one with the most rings won a prize bag.
Game #2- a written quiz (multiple choice) about the couple for the guests to fill out and Lindsay got to go through and answer all the questions in more detail for everyone. (How they met, first date, proposal, etc)
Game #3- a veil making contest (which ended up being a lot more fun than I expected). I've been to several showers where the bride gets decorated in a toilet paper dress, but instead we had them divide into pairs and make a "veil" using a paper plate, crepe paper, this tulle "ribbon" and tape. The bride got to choose her favorite to wear the rest of the shower. (modeled above) I was really impressed by the creativity we saw and how completely different they all were.

Linds and Mel :)

The Frog got to be the only boy on the premises and Melissa's mom had a lot of fun playing with him (and the dog) for most of it.

Linds got a great "haul", including this very subtle mask :D

My present :) (a Silpat, made in France. LOVE THEM! Perhaps I'll dedicate a later post to raving about mine)

haha, really want to make an obvious pun on The Frog's name here... can you guess it?

The prize bags- pink nail polish, pink toe separators and a pink nail file. Just loved these cellophane bags from Zurchers.

For favors, we gave out madeleine cookies in the aforementioned bag with a recipe attached using pink ribbon.

I think all our hard work paid off. It was a great success!