Wedding Blog

This past weekend I had a truly amazing shower, with no theme, no matching invitations, no cake-pop making activities, and only 10 guests. It was the exact opposite of what I was hoping for, because I had been oogling over showers like these; and yet, I couldn’t have asked for a nicer shower. All of my hints had been directed towards my lovely hostesses my mother and ’maids. My mother was the only one among them who still lived in my old hometown, so I believe she played a big role in the planning, even though that’s frowned upon. She hit up my bridesmaids and me for ideas, then weeded them out according to the guests that were attending. Things like the toilet paper dress game did not make the cut!

At first I thought, ‘poor mom, she was having trouble with the planning since she had never thrown a shower before and didn’t care for a lot of the typical shower games’! And when she heard I had mentioned having a theme, she thought that didn’t sound like me at all and called me up in disbelief. Taken off guard, I didn’t recall saying I wanted a theme, but later on I did remember mentioning that it would be nice to do something like a kitchen theme were everyone brings a kitchen tool, or a holiday theme to beef up our seasonal decorations. So when shower time came around and I realized there were ten guests and no theme in sight, I may have been secretly feeling a little disappointed. Looking back, I can’t believe how terrible it was for me to feel that way! My shower was spectacular!

The shower took place in a bookstore-turned-coffee shop that was opened that Sunday just for us. My mom had ordered a few red and a few white flower arrangements to play the role of centerpieces and favors.

To determine the winner of the flowers, I was tasked with placing stickers under dinner plates. I knew I’d be starting the feeding frenzy, so left the first plate stickerless.

When guests arrived they were introduced to game #1. Each person was given a small note pad and pen and were asked to guess how old of Mr. Sunbeam and I were in a few pictures placed around the coffee shop on tables. The first game was a hit, and was actually pretty tough!

After eating small sandwiches and wedding soup, it was time for game #2. One of my ’maids had a questionnaire called “how well do you know Miss Sunbeam?”. I looked over at my mom’s college girlfriends and thought, ‘oh, they are not going to like this one; they hardly know me!’ So wrong. The ladies had been reading my wedding blog and were SO excited that some of the info had been covered there - one even came out the victor (our moms didn’t play due to the unfair advantage!).

Then I served up the delish banana nut cake my mom made. Last week I will admit that I said to Mr. Sunbeam, “I hope so much there will be a pretty cake at my shower! At least let there be a pretty cake!” Obviously, I forgot my mom is master baker of my favorite cake, which I’d take in place of a flowery bakery cake any day!

Then came gift time. This was the best part, and not for the reason you’re thinking! My mom had asked Mr. Sunbeam to write the top 10 things he loved about me (of course he responded “Well, if I had to limit it to ten…”). What a charmer. When I opened a gift, a guest would read a loud one of his responses. This would have made me melt, but my mom made me do a top ten on the spot for Mr Sunbeam, too!! Talk about sweating bullets in front of your FMIL. I can think of a million things now, but under that pressure, it was tough. The kicker was that my answers were written down to tell him later! Oy. Most guests were nice enough to have gifts sent to San Francisco for me, and gave me cards with notes or gift certificates to lighten my load home, which worked out perfectly for me!

*How can I compete with those answers?!*

At the end of the shower, something miraculous happened. No one ran to leave! In fact, the coffee shop lady started packing up all the extra food for us to give us the hint. I was elated the rest of the day, and felt so silly for thinking the shower would be anything but fabulous even sans coordinating invites and decor or thematic decorations!

Did your shower have a theme or were/do you hope for one?