Jamie's Bridal Shower

A few weeks ago I flew east for my friend Jamie's bridal shower. It was a lot of fun, as showers go (you know, all that playing hostess for for women you don't know from Adam... or Eve), and it was great to see my friends again for a couple days. There were tons of awesome little details:


It was a travel-themed shower, so the bride's sister/MOH Emily had guests submit a photo and description of their favorite trip with a loved one. I sent a picture from our Alaska trip back in June. Emily and I had grand ideas of doing a digital scrapbook that we printed out, but in the end, time constraints won out and she inserted everything into a photo album.


Emily also got lots of flowers from Sam's Club and made vase arrangements for all the tables. We played a game that sent us "around the world" (we even had passports to write our answers in) to identify various international things, including identifying the phrase "I love you" in various languages (shown on that poster board -- I only knew the Chinese and Italian). Each vase also had a flag in it from a different country, which we had to identify. The wedding colors are black and white, hence the black-and-white polka dot ribbon.


All the presents were displayed in open suitcases. This also made it very convenient to pack all the presents up at the end!


A family friend made this bride cake. The "skirt" is the cake, and the bodice is decorated with icing. When we got back to Jamie's house and ate it, we discovered that the doll was just a head and torso with a long stem in the bottom instead of legs -- maybe it's meant for this kind of thing? The cake stand was decorated with extra flowers from Sam's Club.



The around-the-world food included various international cheeses and appetizers (sushi, potstickers, appetizer meatballs, falafel, stuffed grape leaves) and the flags for the passport game were stuck in the various foods as well.


These ice bowls were absolutely amazing. The bowls for the shrimp and cocktail sauce were actually made of ice, with the lemon slices frozen within them. They were very well-received, and it was eventually revealed that the instructions came from -- who else? -- Martha Stewart. To keep it from melting all over the place, the ice bowls were on top of the polka dot fabric that was on top of a shammy that was on top of a cookie sheet.


Here's Jamie holding one of the gifts from me and our other friend Paula -- a towel cake! It's two full sets of towels, rolled to form a three-layered cake, and decorated with ribbon I had at home and post-Christmas clearance decorations. I have to say, it was a pretty big hit.


This picture's pretty crappy, but I wanted to show off the other part of the gift from Paula and me (it was lingerie), with the pretty black-and-white damask-like print wrapping paper (they were actually chandeliers printed on the paper, not a true damask print). Do I know how to coordinate or what?


While Jamie was opening her presents, my job was to make the bow bouquet.

Pretty good, huh? I even made it one-sided, in a cascade shape, with a ribbon-wrapped handle. Too bad I'm the master of a non-money-making skill.


A shot with the towel cake and bow bouquet. You can see the doll cake in the background, too. The shower was held in the clubhouse of a local housing community. Jamie's mom knew someone who lived there, so we were able to have the shower there. It was really nice -- like the living room, dining room, and caterer's kitchen of a very large, fancy house.



Group shot -- from left to right, Jamie's friend from med school, Devon; me; Jamie; and our other bff Paula. We played that game where everyone got a clothespin when we walked in and were told we couldn't say the word "wedding." Later on, it was expanded to include the word "Jamie" as well. If someone caught you saying those words, she got to take your clothespin, and the person with the most clothespins at the end won a prize. We also played bridal shower bingo, which was fun. It was a game-intensive shower, for sure.

After the shower was over, we acted like the pathetic, then-26-year-old med student/interns we are and did absolutely nothing on a Saturday night. Well, we ended up playing Cranium, which is always a good time. All in all, in was a lot of fun, and we have the bachelorette party coming up in Pittsburgh at the end of March. Jamie's wedding is April 12 -- I probably need to get my bridesmaid dress altered because the next six weeks are going to fly by!