My mom hosted a couples' shower at her house Saturday night. There were several other couples helping host and since it was my mom's house, she was just responsible for decorating and dessert. Everyone else brought the food and drinks. This meant that, by extension, I was responsible for decorating and dessert. Centerpieces are something I love though, so I was happy to pitch in the help. After I finished all my baking Friday night and Saturday morning, I packed it all up to take over to Mom's around noon. We had already done some pre-work on the centerpieces but flowers would need to be arranged too. There was lots to do before the guests arrived!
When we started brainstorming about themes and ideas a while ago, my mom's only stipulation that it wasn't Eastery. Being the night before Easter, it would've been really easy to go with that, but she didn't want the bride to look back years later and all the pics from the shower have bunnies and chicks in them. She told me the bride had chosen yellow and turquoise for the wedding colors and so I suggested we go with a country-chic-ish theme with lots of mason jars. So my mom spent the last month buying mason jars every time she was at the grocery store and we hit up every candy store for turquoise and yellow candy.
I'll spare you the details of us putting it all together and skip straight to the shots of how everything looked all set up. No better place than to start with the front doors. My mom picked up these big daisies at Michaels and used ribbon to tie them in bunches.
Right off the entry hall is the dining room. We kept the centerpieces in this room simple since all the food would go here. (I never got to see the food since I wasn't even invited to the party!) Three large lemon-filled mason jars with daisies, baby's breath, and tulips. Easy, simple, cute.
The centerpiece on the kitchen table wasn't quite as plain and simple. We grouped mason jars in all sizes together and filled them with colorful candy, sprinkles, or sand. Most of them also had either flowers or a candle in them.
View from the other side of the table.
Since all the dinner food would be on the dining table, the kitchen table would hold all the desserts. On one end, was my display of cake pops. I layered three pieces of styrofoam that were covered in brown paper and carefully measured out my spacing. I think my triple-tiered cake pops were cute!
From left to right: chocolate cake, white cake, lemon cake, yellow cake, and more chocolate.
On the other side of the table were all the lemon cupcakes in jars, each with their own individual spoon.
Coca-cola font!
And one last shot because I think they're so cute.
So the full table looked something like this. Very yellow, very turquoise.
The inside tables weren't the only ones we had to decorate. Because the weather was so nice and my mom's house gets crowded first, she also set up a few card tables outside where all the drinks were. Those tables each got a simple table cloth topped with a piece of burlap and 3 mason jars.
Once all the flower arrangements were done, we still had a bundle of tulips left over. We split them between two more mason jars and tied a strip of burlap around them. They were perfect to sit out on the shop patio.
The drink table was outside too.
I only had a few sprigs of baby's breath and a couple of yellow carnations left, so I added some greenery to them for one last arrangement on this table.
The burlap was used here too, this time in a bucket for the styrofoam cups.
The cups were personalized for the bride and groom.
And with that, my job here was done. For one last finishing touch, I personalized my mom's cookie jar for the bride and groom before walking out the door.
Now that I've posted this all here, it might be harder for me to reuse these ideas for the next shower I host. Rats. If you see the mason jars again, act suprised, ok?