Pop the bubbly bridal shower

When my sister told me she was getting married I got a little excited. In fact I'm pretty sure the words weren't out of her mouth and I had a wedding planner, some magazines and a book sent to her within 48 hours.

Maybe it was the connection on the phone but I'm pretty sure she said "Hey Lisa how would you like to be my maid of honor and throw me the most kick ass bridal shower evah?" I'm pretty sure that's exactly what she said... or it could have been "OMG!! Jordan asked me to marry him!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!".

Planning was well underway- at least by me. She was busy finishing her undergraduate degree and I had to give her that time and space to get that done. Her graduation party was a little outlet but once she got home and settled in her new job I had permission to start pushing encouraging her to get the event planned.

We picked a date for the bridal shower and I got to work. After bouncing a few ideas around,we settled on Brunch and Bubbly- because mimosas!

A lot of work went into creating a really fabulous event and I want to share all the details with you- so I'm breaking this up!

Event planning basics: There are a few simple steps that will help you host a well organized event- the less stress the better.  I don't have a pretty printable but hopefully you will find these helpful:

• Pick a date- the day of the week and time of day that works best for your guest of honor will dictate what type of event you have. I was coming from out of town, as were a bunch of my sister's friends so a weekend was going to be a necessity.
• Pick a theme- based on the time of day you can build pretty much any theme you want! I wanted something that reflected my sister's transition into adulting so a bruch seemed like a good idea, not too early, a little booze and the rest of the day was open for adventuring- or naps.
• Decide on a budget- you can do a lot with a little if you are willing to make a lot by hand and/or by asking people to contribute their talents. While I did DIYed a lot for this party, I had a few aunts bring their trademark dishes, a friend of my sister's took the pictures and a couple of friends helped pull it all together on site. I had some expenses but not as much as if I had had it catered, bought all the decore, hired a photographer and used an event coordinator.
• Make a plan!!! The single most important element to a low stress fabulous event is to have a plan. Take the date of the party and work backwards- from set up the night before all the way back to the date the invites need to be printed/designed for snail mail or email.

Once the date of the shower was set I got to work on the invitations. They were going to be paper and pretty! I used Vistaprint to design the invite and waited for them to have a good sale before I ordered them. Janice was awesome about wanting the shower to be classy and a little off theme from the actual wedding, so we went with pink and gold. I also ordered coordinating thank you notes for the bride to send out after the shower.

And you know the envelope had to be pretty! I used my silhouette to address the envelopes and I loved how they turned out! I used the metallic silhouette pens and then filled the names in by hand. Apparently there are tutorials to show you how to do this with the machine but I didn't bother trying to figure it out.I wanted to include the flower on all of the invites but it was taking a long time to individually create each envelope. Instead, I used the flower on invitations for the mothers, grandmothers and bridal party.

Next up- party decorations!