From Miss to Mrs. with our best wishes...

From Miss to Mrs, With our best wishes…
{an article I wrote for one of our local publications...}

 It is rapidly approaching the time when the scurrying of Misses who will soon become Mrs. will begin. This also means, that all of those soon-to-be Mrs. Closest friends and family members will be scurrying about planning all the parties to precede the impending nuptials.

So, here are a few ideas to make those pre-wedding parties both fun and fearless.

First things first, Decide on a theme and scheme. What does the bride like? Is she more of a blue ball jar filled with wild flowers on a table kind of gal, or is she more of a Tiffany&co. blue box kind of girl? The shower is for the bride, so it should reflect her style. The party will come and go for the host, but the bride will cherish the day for years to come.

Decide on a budget. Now this decision of the party is all about the host not the bride. However, you do not have to sacrifice big impacts because of a small budget.

Use what you already have, like your good china. Most of us never use it for fear it might get chipped, but if that happens, you can always save it for next time you and hubby-dearest have a tiff. He will know you are fed up when you throw it on the kitchen floor shattering into a million pieces, but you didn’t actually have to sacrifice a piece of the “good stuff”. I call that recycling the china.

Barrow what you don‘t have. There is always something you have that someone else wants to borrow. So if the friend that has all those handed-down silver trays has made several comments on your favorite necklace, take it to her as a bargaining tool when you ask to borrow all of her “good stuff“.

Decide on a menu. This decision should be made keeping the time of the shower and the location in mind. If it is a 10 o’clock in the morning event, you can serve fruits and juices with an omelet bar. If it is a co-ed shindig, consider serving bar-b-que, in mason jars with bandannas tied to them for the napkin to doll it up just a little. The menu is where a lot of the expense occurs as well. Go into it realizing that you do not have to feed your guests a meal, you just need to give them something to nibble and sip on. Think tiny-sized not super-sized.

At the end of the day, everyone is there to celebrate the finding of love between two people.

And if the bride leaves having laughed until it hurt, shedding a tear at the kind words spoken, and feeling all of the best wishes that were sent her way, then you know the shower did exactly what it was meant to.

Love, Liz