A bridal shower for Eva

Rewinding a bit from the craziness that has been the last several weeks (last night was my first weeknight off since before the Orchestra Gala, eek!)...a couple weekends ago, we the bridesmaids of Eva and Josh's wedding threw Eva an absolutely ridiculously great bridal shower. If I may say so myself. Which I decided I may. 

My mother, who is an unmitigated and unquestionable rockstar, gave us the run of the Lakeville house for the days leading up to the shower, and did more to help us out than any of us even realize. Without her guidance and coordination, there is no way this event would have turned out as just-plain-prettily as it did. 

The shower also offered me insane opportunity to indulge my crazy Etsy habit. I ordered digital files of invitations from Pretty Little Papers, which set the pink, gold, gray and mint green color scheme. From there, it was straight out binge-ing on Etsy goodness. Below: cute straws courtesy of Glitter Me Sweet, which I thought looked adorable floating in iced coffee, elderflower-rose lemonade or our lethal and delicious sangria. 

About that sangria...um, hi. The recipe is from Kitchen Treaty, and we quadrupled it. Which, in hindsight, we probably didn't neeeed to do, because that meant the sangria was essentially four entire bottles of Chardonnay, a full bottle of white rum, and the world's least generous splash of Diet Sprite. Add in the fruit, which soaked in so much alcohol it basically was liquor-pickled, and you have the recipe for a VERY drunk bridal shower. Drunkest? Bridesmaids. Aka Claire and me. Oops. The fact that we sat in my kitchen after the shower ended just eating the fruit straight out of the pitcher probably didn't help. (Tags from the Target dollar section, perfect handwriting courtesy of Mrs. Pettis in third grade.)

We set two tables, one in the kitchen and one in the dining room. My mom's gorgeous china and glassware, linens and napkins from Party City, and stunning flower arrangements courtesy of Jodester and her gift for all things requiring a green thumb looked beautiful in both rooms, IF I MAY. 

I MEAN REALLY. (Confetti was another Etsy purchase from "PaperConfettiDotCom," and although you can't really tell in the photo, it was sparkly. I loved it.)

I wasn't kidding about Jodester's gift for florals...just look at these! 

Just for fun, a cute Claire-Lizzie pic from pre-sangria hours of the day. This is also before my hair went completely haywire in the absurdly humid 95-degree heat we were dealing with all day.

Also included in our Pretty Little Papers invitation suite? Games galore...I think there were four or five different options included in the printables file. We went with two...a "What's in your purse" game where each participant got a certain number of points for having items, and the classic "How well do you know the bride?" quiz game. Prizes included cute coffee mugs and pens that my mom picked up at Hallmark...just fun little things to actually incentivize winning! 

The pompoms on the mantel are Martha Stewart and the Bride to Be banner is from Amazon. Chalkboard sign (down by the presents!) is another Target dollar section find. 

Before things got too out-of-control crazy humid, we took a TON of pictures out on our deck! My mom's flowers were off-the-charts beautiful this year and the setting couldn't have been prettier...again, if I may say so myself. 

Pre-getting drunk bridesmaids...oops. Prob not the best practice for the wedding...OR IS IT? 

My mother might as well be a fourth bridesmaid at this point. Apart from providing and arranging all the flowers, she cleaned the house top-to-bottom, helped us decorate for hours, found pretty much the entire menu, grocery-shopped with me, and kept me from flipping shit at least half-a-dozen times. She ALSO hand-cut envelope liners and invitations with me for close to two hours at an Office Max on a Saturday morning. Needless to say, she is the true MVP of this entire day. LOVE you to pieces, Jodester! 

The bride with her birth mom and future mother-in-law, who I totally fell in love with and can't wait to hang with at the wedding...

And of course the bridal party, looking appropriately lovely...for a moment...

...before we just couldn't restrain ourselves anymore. Oops. 

FOOD! My mother made cinnamon coffee-cake muffins, and we went nuts on the fruit skewers. Adorable heart skewers courtesy of Etsy shop Ellen084...they might have been my favorite detail of all. 

We also made two different egg casseroles...a spinach and artichoke one by A Spicy Perspective, and a gruyere-and-sausage strata from MyRecipes. Both turned out to be absolutely delicious, and I'm already planning to make them again for pretty much every out-of-town event I have...there are few easier ways to look like a rockstar houseguest than whipping up an insanely good breakfast, after all. 

By this point, not only were all of us fairly buzzed, but the humidity had taken my fairly under-control hair and turned it into the stuff of swamp-monster dreams. YIKES, CAMPERS. 

After brunching, we scored games...

...opened presents...

...and capped off the day in the sweetest way possible with cupcakes from Sweet Treasures in Lakeville! We mixed and matched five flavors, and each was as decadent as it was pretty. (I went with the salted caramel and only refrained from scraping my plate clean because I didn't want to scratch the china. Oops.)

I think the bride approves...

Woo! One event down...next stop, this weekend's bachelorette party and then it's time to get this girl down the aisle!