Inspiration Board – Mad Hatter Tea Party

One of the worst things about getting married is you can’t plan your own showers. I would have loved to have a Mad Hatter Tea Party! I guess one of my lucky engaged girlfriends will get one instead… I pretty much have it all planned. I am just waiting on the boyfriends to pop the question. I got the idea when Taylor, of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, threw a Mad Hatter Unbirthday Party for her daughter last season. It was divine and over the top. I loved every minute of it. My party will obviously have to be downsized a bit, simply because my budget is a tad tighter than hers, but I am sure I can get creative and make it amazing. It is a perfect opportunity to stretch my DIY muscles.

1. Misdirectional Signs // 2. Eat Me Tags // 3. Personalized Hats // 4. DIY Croquet Sticks // 5. Drink Me Tags // 6. Eat Me Desserts

Cowboy Chic Couple’s Shower

Both of my Maids on Honor threw me the most amazing Couple’s Wedding Shower last summer. One of the most amazing things they did was they let me help. I get so excited about these types of things and wanted to try out some of my DIY ideas that I knew where not going to fit in with my wedding theme. I tried my best not to take over or be too controlling, because honestly this was their party and they were doing me a favor by letting me be involved.

Couple’s Cowboy Chic Shower Inspiration Board

Step 1: Pick a theme

Even though I am a California girl, I am a country girl at heart and had spent most of my adult life in Texas. Plus I was marrying an Alabama boy, so a southern theme was a no brainer. I decided to make it a little girly and call it Cowboy Chic, which really just means wear a dress and some cowboy boots and call it good.

Step 2: Pick a location

My grandmother was ever so generous to let us use her beautiful backyard. One of my favorite movies has always been Father of the Bride and I always wanted to get married in my grandmothers backyard or at least have the reception there. I knew that would never work, so I figured having a shower there would be the next best thing. Plus I did not have to travel very far once I got my dress on.

Step 3: Pick a date

Duh… but harder than you think. Accept the fact that you cannot accommodate everyone’s schedule. Impossible!

Step 4: Invitations

I scoured the internet for western themed ideas and pulled from various sources to finally come up with our finished product. I made them myself in PowerPoint. It would have been nice to have some higher tech software, but I made do with what I had. Maybe someday… I got the invitation paper from Michaels for like $10 (I had a 40% off coupon) and printed them off at home. It was so easy and fun!

Step 5: Decor

There were a couple of signature things I knew I wanted right away… I had been eyeing the Martha Stewart Pom Poms for a while and knew how fabulous they would look in my backyard in shades of pink. I think I ended up making about 50 of them. I loved them so much I could not bare throw them away after the party. We ended up saving them and used some for the rehearsal dinner, some on a sign my grandmother had made for us, and I even used a 3 of them as my bouquet at the rehearsal. The second item on the decor list was Mason Jars. We used the larger ones as vases on tables filled with Peonies and Sunflowers (Peonies are not cheap) and the smaller jars we used as drink glasses. You could fill them with your choice of liquor, Shiner Beer, Pink Signature Drink, Sweet Tea or wine (My girlfriend had labels made with our baby pictures put on the bottles. It was adorable and possibly my favorite detail at the party!)

Step 6: Food

Since it was a country, western, southern, cowboy chic, whatever you want to call it party, we had to have BBQ. We ordered the best California BBQ you can find (which is hard) and went to Armadillo Willy’s. I smuggled some Rudy’s BBQ Sauce home from Texas and had some friends make corn bread muffins and homemade potato salad. For dessert we had non other than warm apple pie and cold vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm I am getting hungry just talking about it.  It was absolutely delowcious!

Step 7: Favors

What is a party without favors? We made little S’More Favors for each guest with little personalized tags that said, “S’MORES, Y’all!”

Notes: It turned out to be a great party. We had way too much alcohol and food left over due to my fear of never having enough (sorry girls), but other than that no complaints here. It was fabulous and the girls did an amazing job. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.