Weddingbee

Yes, that’s right. Sister Coconut is getting married this July, and I’m getting married in November. Only 4 months apart! It’s actually quite exciting when I think about it, although Mama Coconut might not be too excited. So, one of my duties (does anyone watch Friends? Think Joey) as a Maid of Honor was throwing a kick-butt bridal shower for my only sister. With graduation and exams it was rather tough, but I managed to pull it off last weekend!

Decor and food were the easiest parts of the shower. I went to Michael’s and bought wood letters spelling her name and some coral spray paint. I also decided to make a candy tree using a planter and some floral foam. It came out nicely, but not as nicely as I pictured. For favors, I stole an idea from Miss Penguin’s MOH and made wine glass charms. I picked up 30 wine glasses for $25 at IKEA and attached name tags. There’s something about name tags that makes a person feel special, isn’t there? I also tried to make tissue pomanders, but I think I failed at making them poofy and the tissue paper wasn’t the greatest quality. Nonetheless, they were cute. I actually hired my wedding caterer to make sandwiches and salads for the shower. It was wonderful and a nice excuse to take my caterer for a test drive.

(I had a few pictures of them printed and bought frames from IKEA!)

(The wine glasses were super cheap at IKEA, I also used Swarovski crystals for the charms and some Martha Stewart tags)

(You can see one of the tissue pomanders here. See? Not so poofy. I’m using a floral ball next time!)

Games were the most taxing decision because I know some people loathe bridal shower games (*guilty as charged*) so I wanted to spruce things up a bit. The first game we played as sort of an ice breaker. It was titled, “How Well Do You Know the Bride?” and I printed it out on my laser printer and taped it to some pretty Martha Stewart paper I had bought. The second game was a quiz for Sister Coconut, but the best part was that I had met up with her fiance earlier that week and videotaped his responses. It was quite hilarious watching Sister Coconut get so embarrassed! The last game was Bridal Boggle, which is a game Sister Coconut and her fiance play often. For gifts, I bought a couple of Vera Bradley porcelain jewelry boxes that were so cute!

(Again, to spruce it up I attached the white paper to some pretty Martha Stewart paper with double-sided tape)

Did I use the gocco? Of course I did! I’ll use any excuse to pull that baby out! I didn’t have many ideas for what to gocco - I made a menu and a sign for the front door. It was a waste of bulbs but who cares, it was totally fun! I also made her bridal shower invites on the gocco and let me just say that the gold gocco ink is fabulous. I’m totally using it to make our wedding invitations.

(Can you see the speckly gold? I’m obsessed. For those wondering, I designed the invites on Illustrator, but it could have easily been done on Word. I found the scroll pattern at istock and the fancy font is Bickham Script Fancy. I believe I downloaded it at FontFreak.)

Gocco Tip: I used scrap paper to mark my spot that way I got it right every time!)

(You can’t see it but the gold ink is super cute!)

(As part of her invitation suite, I made an advice card. I only collected a few because many forgot to bring it, but I’m going to put them in a book for her with some pictures from the shower!)

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