Planning a Simple Wedding Shower
by Ronda Asta - rondaquilts@bellsouth.net

Description: Tips for planning a simple wedding shower.

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This has been an interesting month. A couple at Church announced their engagement and subsequent wedding. I volunteered to help plan the shower and the next thing I know I'm coordinating the entire shower, wedding and reception with a month notice before the wedding. What a challenge! I thought I'd share my experiences of planning a simple shower. The shower was this past weekend and was well received. The wedding is yet to come, this weekend, and I'll have to let you know how it all turned out later.

One thing I hate is unorganized…… long meetings. So first off my volunteer status was contingent on not participating in any of our previous three hour planning sessions. That was just for the shower. I haven't planned a wedding since my own first wedding over 20 years ago so this was a refresher course first hand.

First things first, I wanted to know who all was going to be involved in this process. It was the bride-to-be, two of her sisters and I. I know them all well and think I can be pretty up front with them. We met for breakfast at a local restaurant and talked through what the bride wanted. Of course that's most important.

As she talked I saw dollar signs rolling and suggested we go simple yet elegant and made a few suggestions. Since the time for both the shower and reception would be after 7p.m. paring down the refreshments to cake, mints, nuts and punch, saved lots of those dollars and made purchasing the items and setting up the refreshment table easy.

Both the bride and groom-to-be were previously married and have their own households. A typical shower setting them up with household items is unnecessary, so we opted for redecorating their bedroom. A nice touch for any newlyweds. After breakfast we went to the groom's house, where they'll be living and took a look at the current colors and what they might want. Of course the bride was there to help us make those decisions. Our initial plans included repainting the walls but happily we saw there was great looking "wallpaper look" paneling already in place. That left us with more options to purchase those neat accessories they wanted. We opted for a new comforter, lots of candles, something new for the wall and bathroom accessories (the bath and bedroom are attached). We dubbed it a "bedroom party." What fun you can have with that. Simple computer generated shower invitations were sent out with information about the major purchase of the comforter (which the bride selected). Since this was a large purchase we indicated it would be great if some wanted to go in on that gift, which folks did. (That makes it easy for everyone.) The invitation also listed other items they could use. It's so much easier shopping for someone when you know what they want or can really use.

I wish I had a picture to show you how beautiful the refreshment table and decorations turned out but they're still waiting developing. I'll try to paint you a word picture but it won't come anywhere close to how it really looked. I'd attended a Business and Professional Women's luncheon earlier in the month and helped set up a preplanned beautiful food table. (Who says we have tohave original ideas......they're made for sharing.) I'm sure you've seen tables in restaurants or magazines set up in various layers, where food was spread across these layers in pretty dishes. I used bowls, flowers, greenery, candles and various other items from my own home so the cost was very low. I had the sheets but purchased 4 feet of dark blue material and a few of those clear and variegated marbles you see in the bottom of vases. I used a typical 6-8' rectangle table and laid two white sheets across it making sure the sheet fell to the floor in front. I then used six 12-15" round styrofoam pieces about 3 inches high. I stacked two side by side and two on top of those for the first layer. A little further down the table I laid the other two styrofoam pieces separately. I then draped the blue material over the styrofoam pieces and tucked in any raw edges. It's a really soft draped look. I then began to decorate with the items I'd brought. It's amazing what can be used to hold nuts, mints and forks. The two givens I had were the cake and punch, one to be placed on each end of the table. For the shower we used two glass pictures instead of a punch bowl. The punch bowl we're saving for the reception. I then took the rest of what I'd brought and decorated the table with candles, greenery, glass marbles, various dishes and other items. I filled two dishes with nuts and mints and snuck in a simple cheese, cracker and grape tray. It looked beautiful and just before the bride arrived we lit the candles and turned off the lights for affect. We then spent the rest of the evening with the candles lit and only half the room lights on. We played two simple games which I found on the intranet and had a wonderful evening at little expense. Any items I purchased can be used for future events and in many different ways. Use your imagination when gathering items for the table. It's a simple and inexpensive way to set an elegant table for a special person. And this bride-to-be and her sisters are just that to me, special people.

We'll talk about the wedding next month (the bride may read this before then and I can't tell our secret blessings we have planned for her wedding and reception.) Keep in touch and have fun with your next shower or special event. Keep it simple!

Copyright 1999, Ronda Asta.

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