Bridal shower tea party

Today I hosted a Bridal Shower for my friend Kirsten. I had hoped to have a brunch with mimosas and yummy breakfast items, but Kirsten works on Saturday mornings, so alas, to accomodate the bride, I changed the plans. I decided to do an afternoon tea at 4:00.

For the decor, I went all white. The shower was for her to get to know the women in our church. Not many of them will be at her wedding. So I decided that it wouldn't make sense to use her bridal colors. Since she didn't know many of the women well, I didn't want to center the shower on any theme and restrict people to having to buy certain items or focus on certain themes. So I wanted something simple and elegant with a bit of whimsy. I found a cute little sign at Target that said, "And they lived happily ever after...." I thought it would be a cute addition to my gift to her and I could use it on the table at the shower. I made it my centerpiece. I then bought white lilies and tulips and put them in my hurricanes on either side. And for the drama, I made tissue pom-poms.

Now a word on the poms. When looking for decor ideas, I googled "bridal shower decor." And I found a blog with instructions on how to make these poms. Then I discovered that my college roommate had just used some similar poms at her daughters birthday party. They are so much fun. Add so much drama. And were the talking point of the shower. I think they'll be seen in all kinds of sizes and colors at my future parties.

Finally, the menu...

For beverages, I offered both hot tea and iced tea. As expected, the Bourbon-Spiked Arnold Palmer turned out to be the big hit. I also offered lemonade, water, and unsweet iced tea.

For food, I went with tea time treats. My chocolate chip scones have now become my signature treat and they seem to taste better each time...but don't think they're any slight bit healthy. I converted my Fontina-Prosciutto Cheeseball by omitting the pine nuts and spreading the mixture on white bread for tea sandwiches. And we had Wimbledon-style Strawberries 'n' Cream.

Michael had taken the camera on the Men's fishing trip, so I couldn't take pictures. So to get documentation of this even, I had to take a video.