My friend Catherine has been engaged for a looooong time. Why so long? Well, her fiance, Roberto, lives(d) in Belgium. Talk about a long-distance relationship! Catherine and Roberto (Catherto? Roberine?) have been trying for a long time to get his fiance Visa approved, and finally, in June, he was able to have his interview and get approved! Now, I don't really know all the details here, but I'm pretty sure once he got approved, they had a short timeframe to actually tie the knot. Maybe 90 days? Eh, I coulda made that up.
But, Catherine's a teacher and decided she wanted to go ahead and have the wedding while she was out for summer break. Plan a wedding in a month and half? Sure, why not! And you know me...I smelled an opportunity for a party.
So, after some quck back-and-forth emails between me and Catherine, we set a date. A week later, invites went out and a week and half after that, it was party time! Like I said - short timeline.
I ordered the invitations from this etsy store and they set what little bit of "theme" I had. (Sorry for the smudging. Gotta stay safe!)
Basically, mason jars + pink flowers is what I was going with.
I was pretty pumped about the mason jar part because my dad had just purchased this for my mom for Mother's Day and I was itching to borrow it.
It's a wire rack holding three mason jar-ish vases. The best part is that the lids to the vases have that nice little grid that makes flower arranging so much easier! Obviously, when Dad gave it to Mom it had a pretty arrangement in it (and I didn't even help him pick this out!).
I picked up a bunch of fresh flowers from the Farmer's Market the day before the shower and went to town making arrangements. I would not say this is one of my specialties, but I had fun with it.
I used Mom's triple vase as the centerpiece on the food table.
I popped more flowers into new, old, and antique mason jars to use everywhere else.
Up on the mantel...
In the kitchen...
And on the coffee table with another jar full of pink candy sticks.
Since the shower was right after lunch, we didn't go overboard with the food. We had salami roll-ups, fruit skewers with fruit dip, and spinach dip with pita chips.
April, my cohost, made the most delicious chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes for dessert. Ohmygoodness, they were so good it was almost sinful!
I made a few pink and white cake pops to go along with the cupcakes. (Too many sweets? Nah!)
And of course, we washed it all down with pink punch.
Keeping with the theme, straws and utensils were displayed in mason jars.
Enough with the decorations, let's get on to the actual party! Catherine was excited to get to open some gifts.
Remember how I said Roberto had to be interviewed before his fiance Visa was approved? Well, April and I decided he shouldn't have to do all the work, and that Catherine should be "interviewed" too. Before the shower, we came up with a list of questions about Roberto that he answered in advance, and then we all took turns pulling out a question (from a mason jar!) to ask Catherine. She had to answer the same way Roberto did to get to open the next present.
She got stumped a few times!
Luckily, we had enough questions that she eventually got to open all of her gifts. She got some good stuff too!
The guest list was all friends of ours from college. It was so nice to have a small group, and some of these girls I hadn't seen in a long time!
Baby Hayes tried to steal the show a few times.
I tried to hide from the camera but Catherine insisted on one last pic of her and the hostesses. My version came out blurry so I hope April got a better one with her camera!
For being a last-minute shower, I'd say it was a big success. We all had a lot of fun catching up and Catherine went home with a car full of goodies. Not too much longer now til those lovebirds officially tie the knot!