LA Brides' Shower

Yes, it's true LA Brides had a joint bridal shower! Amore and I are both members of the same sorority and our BM's who are also sorority sisters joined forces to host a joint shower for us. We all came to our alma mater, Emory & Henry College, for another sorority sister's wedding on Saturday, a girls' night, and our shower on Sunday. It was simply an awesome weekend to celebrate together and with some of our closest friends.




The shower was honeymoon and beach themed since we are both spending our honeymoon at the beach. Our hostesses had bright flower arrangements as decorations and sent us both home with a bouquet. Each guest received a pair of flip flops as their favor. How cute!


The shower was held on campus at our alma mater, which was great for both recent alums and current students. Beyond the lingerie the theme was certainly laughter. We had so much fun! Our guests laughed with us too. It wasn't awkward to have two brides-to-be, but I think it ended up making the shower more fun! Forget bridal jealousy for us!


We both got a number of things off our Frederick's of Hollywood registries and enough lingerie to last us throughout our honeymoons, but some creative gifts too. We got a "Honeymoon Survival Kit" in a mini cooler, which included: sunscreen, chapstick, condoms, and lubricant.



We also received a "Honeymoon cake," which isn't a cake at all! It is similar to diaper cakes made out of diapers, but ours included a beach towel, picture frame, flip flops, sunscreen, cups, candles, and tropical flowers. Our friend Meaghan spent tons of time crafting for us! My BM Lauren purchased a serving tray from our registry and put all the ingredients to make "Sex on the Beach" drink on it!

You know it was a good time when we are laughing and our mouths are open in all the pictures posted on Facebook!

What's the most creative bridal shower gift you've seen?

--Love

Shower Oops!

My FMIL, and her friends, are throwing B and I a shower next weekend. The invitation finally arrived yesterday (a mere 11 days in advance). The shower will be held at the church were B's dad is currently pastor. B knows the guests and I've only briefly met most of those invited.

From my understanding, the shower is supposed to be a "home improvement" themed shower. Since B knows everyone better and we desperately need tools and things to begin our home renovations (more to come on that later, but we get to start fixing up the house in the next few weeks). So we registered at Home Depot. . . if you can call it that. Home Depot technically has a wedding registry, but demand was so low that they no longer offer scanners. That's right--we took a clip board and pen and registered what I imagine is the old fashion way. The registry is also not available online, but guests can access the registry in store from any Home Depot nationally. Let me tell you. . . that was an experience!

The invitations that came specified that this will be a "Jack and Jill shower." I had to Google it to figure out what that, according to this site it's basically a shower that's for both the bride and groom with gifts that both would enjoy. My FMIL told me months ago that she was planning on having a book passed around where guests shared their marriage advice with us. Well, when the invitation came it suggested that guests bring their favorite home improvement advice to share with us! I expected to get marriage advice and will instead get advice on how to properly paint a wall!

It was also important to my FMIL that I register with Pampered Chef. She said that her local consultant was popular and many women in her community favored Pampered Chef for wedding gifts. However, when the shower invitation arrived it didn't list Pampered Chef as one of our listed registries. After a quick check of the registry online, I discovered that no gifts have been purchased from it yet. This isn't a big deal except that this is the only reason I registered there at all.

I'm very grateful for the shower and I want to appear appreciative for all their work, but do I say anything?

Did you experience any "shower oops?"

--Love

Shower Inspiration

BM Tabitha's mother is one of the women I look up to most. She is fabulous, successful, creative, and has craft skills I can only dream about. Tabitha's older sister is expecting her first child and her mother coordinated an amazing shower! Now I know this is a wedding blog and I am not ready to be talking about babies, but a lot of her ideas can translate well into a wedding shower. . . it's all about a fabulous celebration no matter what the occasion!

The shower was "The Sweetest Thing" themed.:















She used the green paper lanterns left over from Tabitha's wedding and purchased new green ones to celebrate the baby boy!















Her mother took her pregnant pictures and made this mural above the gift table. I can only imagine how fabulous engagement pictures could look like this too!



















What are some shower ideas you have?


--Love

Tragic Gifts, Gracious Brides

While in Bluefield, VA for the bachelorette party of a friend (more on that in a later post) I received my first wedding gift! I was so excited when the bride-to-be plopped a great looking package down on my lap in her living room. This was the first time I'd seen her since my engagement, and though we were there to celebrate her impending nuptials, I was thrilled to get a gift myself!



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So, as any good bride would do, I ripped into my fabulous package. What I found there...I wasn't quite expecting. It was a green box with the words "Faerie Glen" scribed on it. Now, the bachelorette is not much of a fairy girl, much less a fAErie girl, and neither am I. So I was a bit surprised. Thinking perhaps this was just a repurposed box, I proceeded to open it. As I did so, the bachelorette and her mother both burst out laughing and proceeded to tell me that this was a gift she had received at a shower the previous weekend. Luckily for her, the gift-giver was not at the shower. The bride and groom (it was a couple's shower) burst out laughing (and tears, in the groom's case) at the sight of this gift:


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Somewhere out there a bride collects these faerie statues. I am not such a bride. It turns out, this gift was a test to see how I would handle receiving an unfortunate gift at a shower. I smiled and said, "Thank you, it's LOVELY!"

Evidently that was enough to pass the test.

What has been your most unfortunate wedding gift?

-Amoré