Bridal Shower Inspiration boards

The bridal shower is fast approaching.  I want to make this party extra special for my best friend.  I have spent many hours researching the best food to serve at the party. 

When planning a party it is extra important to chose the time of the party with caution.  The food you want to serve and the amount of food you will need to provide depends a great deal with the party time.   If you throw a party between 11 and 1 pm or 5 and 6 pm your party guests will most likely come hungry and expect a full meal or eat quite a bit.  Remember to budget for that and plan for hungry guests.  A party between 1 and 4 pm or 7 pm and later you will only need to have finger foods.  My worst fear as a party planner is to run out of food.  Plan your food wisely and DO NOT RUN OUT!

We are doing this bridal shower at 3pm on a Saturday.  This is a good time to plan a bridal shower because you don't have to serve a lot of food and most people won't have other plans or can at least stop by for a short time.  

One of my friend's favorite snack are mall pretzels.  I felt it was necessary to have pretzels at her party.  I have never made them before, how hard can it be? Last year I bought a ton of shot glasses for her birthday party and thought it would be fun to have mini shot glass desserts.  As for the cupcakes, what is a party without cupcakes, especially chocolate ones?  You can't get a bunch of girls together without chocolate!

Here are all the recipes I will be using for the food:

Shot glasses

Macarons

Fruit

Pretzles

Veggies 

Mini Cupcakes

Lemonade 

As for the decorations, it is harder to find decorations that are cheap, but look nice and will make a plain room look like a party.  It is amazing how the simplest party decorations like tissue paper, streamers and balloons can look really nice if you do it right.  I am excited to see how a touch of playfulness and elegance put together can make a simple party look really great.

I am also really excited to use the polka dot straws and the mason jars to use for the drinks.

Its going to be the cutest little bridal shower in the whole town!

Cups

Banner

Tissue Pom Poms

Daisies 

Platter 

Table cloth 

Streamers 

Plates 

Straws

I hope she likes it and the party turns out just as she dreams.  I want it to be perfect with her!

Party On!

Valentines Dance Party- Sucess!

The Valentines Day party I helped throw last Friday was a great success. We planned for 80 and about 75 people showed up.  To read about the food for the party you can read the post here.  We had just the right amount of pasta, way too much pasta sauce (6 gallons of sauce for 80 people is too much!), we had too much salad, and not quite enough bread ( I thought 8 cheesy bread pizzas would be oodles) and we made about 3 cakes too many.  It is my number one fear when planning an event to run out of food so I am totally fine with having too much food.


Planning a party for 80 people can be quite stressful, especially when things do not go according to plan.
It takes a lot of patience and the ability to adapt.  Speaking of adapting, we had to do some major adapting when the pasta sauce showed up 10 minutes before the party started COLD.  Yes, usually when you get food catered it is warm, but Pizza Pie Cafe forgot to mention that the sauce would not be warm.




So... we had to improvise.  Luckily we had a kitchen to heat up the food, but unfortunately we

did not have pots or pans to heat up the sauce
quickly.  We did have two ovens and about 20 stainless steel bowls.  We set the ovens to 350 degrees split up the sauces and began the warming process.

One thing I love about throwing a party is delegating.  When was dealing with the pasta fiasco I had about 5 people ask me what they could do to help.  I was able to have them take care of the little things while I figured out what to do with the pasta sauce.

We were also very lucky to have a DJ at the party to help cover up for us while the sauce got warm.  They played a version of Battle of the Sexes.  It was pretty funny to see the husband and wife's reaction to each others answers.  

We decorated for the party using Wedding pictures of from guests at the party.  I think it was a great/ cheap way to decorate when you have a large group of good friends.  We also dimmed the lights to create a mood and put some lights up.  It is hard to make a church cultural hall look good on a budget and with limited resources, but I do think this was a nice addition.

Food: Better than whatever cake, Salad, Pasta, Cheesy pizza bread.  ( we are still waiting for the sauce to get warm)

Out DJ was awesome.  After everyone was done eating he began the dance.  He started by telling all the husbands that they needed to come line up before the dance started.  Then he told the wives to get up and stand by their husbands and then start dancing.  It was awesome because we all knew the husbands would not dance unless they were forced to.

3 year old love birds Lily and Jacob!

My husband had to work so Lily was my Valentine that night.  We danced together.  I also got to be the "babysitter" while mom and dad danced.  I love holding babies and man does it make me hungry for one of my own.

The key to a good party is to:

1.Relax

2.delegate 

3.do not let the little things bother you.  

4. Make sure you enjoy the party as well. 

Planning a large party can be real tough, but enjoy and have fun!

Party on!

Location, Location, Location

Now that you have “caught your vision” and have an idea, where do you go from there?

Decide the location of the party or event.  The location has a key role in how the party will turn out.  The locations will help create the mood, theme, and atmosphere of the party. 

*via*

Think of your vision…. consider these questions before you decide on a location...

* Do you in vision your party to be outside or inside?

* Do you want it to be fancy or casual? 

* Do you want there to be tables to eat at or just a buffet of food and chairs around to talk?  

* Do you want room for games or dancing?  

* Do you want to have stations? 

* Do you want to have a nice place that you will pay for or do you want it to be simple (home, backyard, local park or church)?  

* Do you need access to a kitchen, electricity or water? 

* If you chose outside, Do you have a back-up plan in case of bad weather?

*via*
Anything can be done outside and it look breath taking with little-to-no decorations. 

*via*
This person took a simple location in a home and made it a beautiful  focal point. 

*via*
This person made an everyday kitchen look like a fun sweet shop.

Not all of us have the resources we need to make the ultimate visionary location become reality (a poor college student living in an apartment complex and it is 10 degrees outside with a foot of snow), but if you think through what you have to work with you can make any location look like you wanted it to! 

This is the hot chocolate birthday party I threw for myself this year.
I had limited resources.  I used the lounge at our apartment complex
(hence the ugly mirror in the back ground and gross florescent lights).
I think despite the location it all turned out quite nicely! 

Party On!