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!

Sorry About the Ample Alliterations...

Hmmm, what has happened recently worth writing about? My life is moving quickly through big and little happenings, but nothing very thought provoking or particularly worth expounding upon has been on my mind as of late. I didn't mean for this blog to turn into a personal travel-log, a reminder that I actually have been filling my time with things that "need" to be done, but to update the past two weeks, this is all I have to report.

My sister had a successful ward bridal shower, fully equipped with tulips, carol b's delicious rolls and famous spinach salad, and angel food cake with strawberries. (Can you tell how my life currently revolves around food?) I think the most interesting gift she received was a single bar stool... or maybe it was the roll of wrapping paper: "I was going to wrap your present, but then I realized that if I didn't, YOU could use the paper for later!" We all had a good laugh at that. (Clearly this was a gift from a very practical aunt- my dad's side of the family.)

Wouldn't it be funny if everyone started doing that? Instead of wrapping the present, just including the wrapping paper as part of the gift, for the receiver to use at a later gift-giving time? However, we would all slowly accrue piles of wrapping paper that we would simply re-gift for other people to wrap their gifts with, and nobody would ever wrap their presents. Kind of a silly scenario.

Personally, I LOVE wrapping presents.

There's something about turning large rolls of pristine paper into carefully crafted coverings and topping it off with some sort of accent to tie it all together- not necessarily a bow- that just completely fills my heart with glee. Not to mention the super sense of satisfaction that comes from using an oddly shaped left-over scrap to perfectly hide your special secret. Conquered. Bliss.

However, there is one downside that a cheapskate like me must not fail to mention. I always, always, always forget to remember (hah) how cute paper and card always add a fairly significant percentage to the final price tag of the gift. Don't get me wrong, I much prefer buying "the perfect thing" for other people than for myself; but I'm also a strong believer in budgets and it is a bit annoying to have this extra expense unexpectedly exist. I mean really... does it make sense to wrap a $10 gift in $5 worth of wrappings? This is a 50% increase in cost!! Very tricky to try and justify.

The solution, of course, is to have plenty on hand so that the cost is far away in the past and harder to be aware of mentally . :)

Interesting how this post has turned out. I could mention other recent happenings, but I think I shall give a house-search update and my quest for avoiding maternity clothes in anther post.

Before I go, though, I would like to mention that I have finally purchased a pair of leggings, and am quite enjoying their comfort at this time.