February Showers Bring May Flowers. . .?

As I mentioned in the posts about our dress experiences, my bridal party is fairly far-flung. BM Blackout currently resides on the West Coast and Rev. Fun is representing the ATL, while the rest of us are in/near Pittsburgh. When we were together for the dress extravaganza, we hammered out dates for the shower and bachelorette party. It was best to just pick ‘em and commit, making sure they were on everyone’s radars well ahead of time. 

personal photo from BM Y| Me with my adorable 'Miss Palm Tree on WeddingBee!' announcement and decorations. How freaking cute is this?!

I know I’m a tad crazy about this ‘getting things done early’ kick, but I just wanted to say that I would recommend having a shower a little bit earlier to ANY and EVERY bride. First of all, my girls did a seriously kickass job and although they would’ve made it baller no matter what, it helped that they had so much time to dedicate to it and to be able to do things in bits and pieces. Second of all, as a Bride, I cannot imagine having a shower super close to the wedding. Although I didn’t do much in terms of action, knowing I’d have to dedicate what would likely be an entire weekend to something when there were 93598345987 time-sensitive things going on at the same time would stress me out to the max. Third, it was nice to include a passive aggressive 'Hope to see you at the wedding!' line in the thank-you notes as a gentle nudge to return the RSVP's. ;) Fourth, it is so nice to have a little buffer in between everything and really feel like you’re in the midst of your Wedding Season the entire time. Late February shower, early April bachelorette party, late May wedding – it’s honestly like the whole first half of the year. I’ll only be doing this once, I want to relish every single moment of being a bride because it won’t come again for me, you know? 

As an aside, I would have likely lost my mind having to deal with unpacking/putting away gifts, like, three weeks before the wedding. YIKES. I’m crazy about boxes and clutter and every single gift was unpacked, assembled, put away, etc. the day after the shower. No joke. Yes, I know this is technically bad juju and you’re not supposed to do it, but I took the practical view: we live together, we’ve been together for almost a decade, we need most of the things we received and again, having to stare at the unopened boxes/clutter in our decently-sized-but-not-huge townhouse for ~80 days would cause panic attacks (plus, the girls and I are getting ready at our place the day of the wedding, so it just wouldn’t work). 

I wanted to share bits and pieces of the day with you, Hive, because it was truly wonderful to be surrounded by so much love and fun. Like I said, my girls went HAM on this shower and it was b-e-a-utiful. I’m going to let the pictures speak for themselves, for the most part. 

*all photos personal (courtesy of BM Y!)

The Ladies: 

Top: MOH Mem and I. From Left to Right: Myself with Rev. Fun, BM Tiny Dancer, BM Badonk, BM Blackout and BM Y.

 All of us, being silly - aka our usual selves. Yes, that *is* a Bingo Board you see in the background. This shower was held at a hall in my and Mr. PT's hometown, because it was super cheap and easy. No shame.

All of us being fabulous, duh.

Here I am with FMIL and FSIL/BM Badonk. FMIL, her sister and best friend cooked ALL of the food for the day.  Deeeeelicious.

My adorable flower girls, who we'll call Pad (on the left) and Pie (on the right). Upon arrival, Pie informed me that she left her smile at home. I told her that if she could give me one for a picture, I'd leave her alone the rest of the day. 

My Meet the Maids table. 

The Meet the Maids table featured pictures of all of us (I tried to do one 'silly' and one 'good' as well as one 'old' and one 'new(er)') as well as a little blurb I wrote about my relationship with each lady. This was a big hit, both for the bridal party as well as the guests. One of my cousins said that she thought it was a great idea because "most of the time, I go to these things and have no f-cking clue who anyone is." ;) I loved it and of course gifted the ladies their picture frames & blurbs. 

The Details & Games: 

Hive, even though this was a 'typical hall' shower, the decorations, thought and effort put into everything was awesome. You can kind of see a bit in the background of the above pictures, but the girls were lucky enough to catch a store (Papermart) going out of business, so it had crazy clearance AND by some stroke of fate, decorations in our exact colors. I mean, the light blue especially - we could hold it up to their dresses and it'd blend in almost perfectly. Score!

Signs made by BM Y - from top left: Cards, Gifts, Yums!, Favors, my Bride ears (a gift from BM Blackout, who visited Disneyland and knows all to well my l-o-v-e for Disney), Desserts and Love Potion #9. The favors were personalized M&M's with our names and hearts - ADORABLE.

A close-up of my awesome cake

One of the tables, fully decorated and ready to go!

We had pretty typical games - Bridal Bingo, the rubberband game (if you catch someone crossing her legs, you steal the rubberband) and the girls also had a timer set while I was opening gifts (when the timer went off, the girls pulled an envelope and that individual won a prize). I, personally, think the best game was the Questionnaire.

FG Pie was the Queen of Photobombing, especially during this. She didn't understand why I was seated up front and everyone was paying attention to what I was writing on a whiteboard.

It was basically like The Newlywed Game: Rev. Fun had asked Mr. Palm Tree questions the night before and then asked me the same ones at the shower. For every question I got wrong, I had to put a piece of that old school, gross, pink, hard-as-nails bubble gum in the mouth. Some of our favorite questions: "If Mr. Palm Tree could pick any of us lovely ladies in the bridal party as his significant other, which would he pick?" (We got this one wrong - I said BM Tiny Dancer, without hesitating, and he chose BM Y. This prompted MULTIPLE serious discussions for the rest of the afternoon & throughout the evening, including us delving into his psyche for the reasons. It was well thought-out, I'll tell you that much.) "What is the most memorable place y'all  [Rev. Fun is from the South, folks] have ever been romantic with each other? Read into that what you will!" (We got this one right. . . much to the hilarity of our guests and psuedo-embarrassment of myself. ;) ) This was a lot of fun and involved a lot of laughter.  

The Gifts: 

This is the part that Brides are supposed to hate, right? Sitting in front of everyone, opening gifts, saying thank-yous and making sure to express the proper amount of 'oohs!' and 'ahhs!'?

True Confessions: I don't hate this part. 

True Confessions Part Deux: I LOVE GETTING GIFTS. I know that you're not supposed to say that and I realize how it comes across, but honestly. I enjoy receiving gifts as much as I enjoy giving them because I know that people put thought and effort into choosing things and that means a lot to me. I was so touched and awed by the overflow of generosity and love of the entire day, but this part was very special and surreal to me. This part is what had me thinking, "oh my gosh, I'm getting married. I'm a Bride (to-be)."

FG Pie photobombing. This China set has been in Mr. Palm Tree's family for three generations; his great-grandfather made them for his great-grandmother when he worked at the China factory. We'll be the fourth generation to own and use them. SO emotional and honored upon opening this gift.

 MOH Mem's mom gifted this to us and it was another emotional moment. It's beautiful and the box it came in was also beautiful. I'm a sap and a half.

Of course, I wasn't the only gift recipient! The guests won prizes for all of the above-mentioned games (except the Questionnaire). Again, my girls nailed it.

These babies were the centerpieces, which doubled as the Timer gifts.

Each BM made a themed basket (Steelers, Comfy/Sleepytime, Pamper, Alcohol, Date Night, Lottery Tree) for the Bingo winners and they also had extra Bath & Body Works sets for the Rubberband game.

Finally, I gifted my girls as a 'thank you' for being so freaking stellar.

Different bottles for different folks? ;)

I was jealous that the girls got to make a basket for the shower, so I made them each their own gift basket. I included a small bottle of their favored (or at least well-liked) liquors, personalized tumblers that I found from Debi DelaCruz on Etsy (highly recommended!) and knot earrings from Blue Nile. I added a "thank you for helping us tie the knot!" note in the earrings and voila! Gifted Bridesmaids. I also bought our Flower Girls their own tumblers as well as FMIL her own (which said "Mother of the Groom", naturally). 

I know this was a long post but I didn't want to leave everything out - it was a truly memorable day. It was so nice to see people I hadn't seen in a long time, to celebrate Mr. Palm Tree's and my love in a caring and happy environment. Every Bride deserves an awesome shower and I am so beyond fortunate to have the people in my life that made mine out-of-this-world. 

My awesome ribbon bouquet (courtesy of MOH Mem) and Bride Ears.

Tell me your shower stories, Hive! Anyone else have a 'hall' shower with homemade food? Anyone else like receiving gifts? ;)