The past few weeks have been super busy preparing to host a couples shower for my friends Jodi and Matt who are getting married in October. Last weekend was the culmination of a LOT of planning and too many trips to Target, Wal-Mart, Party City, Hob Lob and Michael's.
My inspiration for the party started by finding
this pin on Pinterest. I always make
Paula Deen's chicken empanadas for parties so those were the starting point for the menu. I really wanted to create a fun party since Jodi and Matt are such goofballs (in a good way of course)! They are people that are always laughing and having fun so I wanted this party to reflect that. Jodi had two bridal showers planned so I also wanted to incorporate couples into one of the functions.
I found a lot of inspiration from Pinterest such as
this photo garland as well as inspiration from
this blog. Below are some highlight pictures from the evening.
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| The invitation! |
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| Jodi and Matt's Photo Garland! |
To make it a true fiesta, there had to be margaritas. There were three
flavors that I made: traditional, blue lagoon and strawberry. Apparently
I should have been taste-testing while making them since they were
quite potent.
Most of the recipes I used were Pinterest- found. I have included links to the recipes below the picture of the item.
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| The spread - Mexican Mac 'N' Cheese, Spinach con Queso dip, Mini Beef Taco Cups, Skinny Taco Dip, Chicken Empanadas and a veggie spread inspired by this. |
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| http://www.willcookforfriends.com/2012/02/macaroni-con-queso-mexican-mac-and.html |
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| http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/27/mini-taco-cups_n_1052913.html | | |
And the dessert spread!
The vanilla fruit dip recipe can be found
here and the cake batter rice krispie treats recipe can be found
here. All the food got eaten up pretty quickly, so I guess everyone enjoyed everything!
Since it was a couples' shower, I wanted to keep the games to a minimum since I figured guys wouldn't be too willing to play the traditional shower games. One of the games that I found was for a Honey Do Fund. Each person had to wear a name tag with an item that could be used for checking off the honey do list. If anyone said a person's name instead of the name on their tag, they had to put a little something in the honey do jar. Turns out the moms were the worst at this game :) Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the name tags themselves, but you will be able to see them in the pictures of some of the party attendees.
The other game we played was a Battle of the Sexes. We split everyone into two groups of girls and two groups of guys. The teams had 4 minutes to answer as many questions as possible. I used questions from
here and
here to create the game.
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| One of the guys teams concentrating hard. |
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| The other guys team |
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| The winners of Battle of the Sexes trivia! |
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| The other girls team. |
Something that is often seen at showers is wedding advice. I wanted to incorporate the opportunity for guests to leave marriage advice for Jodi and Matt; however, when left a blank piece of paper to do so, I can never think of anything good to write. I also wanted something more casual and fun to reflect the general mood of the entire party. I saw several instances, such as
this, of people doing Mad Libs for shower and even at weddings, so I decided that would be perfect so I created a "Jodi and Matt Libs" (pun credit goes to Brett).
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| The Jodi and Matt Libs! I found the fabulous yellow and gray paper and green linen paper at Michael's to incorporate the wedding colors! |
After food was eaten and games were played, it was time to kick back, relax and enjoy the margaritas and beer.
You can also see some of the name tags I made in the following pictures. I got the name tags
here- they are actually supposed to be food labels, but the fit on Avery 5160 mailing labels that I used later for the party favors. They were also some of the wedding colors (emerald green, yellow, and gray) so they were perfect to use for name tags!
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| The Bride and Groom to be in their matching sombreros! |
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| Myself, the bride to be and Katie, a co-worker of Jodi's (and my former co-worker) |
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| My handsome fiance, Brett, 3 former co-workers, and Greg, Katie's man |
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| The groom and some of his college friends |
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| Some of the gentlemen of the late night crew. |
After most of the guests had left, a group of us ended up playing Catch Phrase, enjoying some of the liquor that was given to the couple and sharing a lot of laughs. The bride-to-be also got curious as to the gifts she and Matt had received.
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| There was a lot of tissue paper! |
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| Loving her veil! |
Finally, as guests were leaving they could grab either a mini bottle of tequila or a Corona that were personalized for Jodi and Matt's fiesta. I found this awesome
site where you can create your own beer labels. I basically took the label I created there and shrunk it down to fit on the mini tequilas. This was one of my favorite parts of the shower, creating these labels and the favors.
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| Close up on the bottles. |
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| The other side of the tequila bottles with a picture of Jodi and Matt. |
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| The favors- a bottle of beer or a mini bottle of tequila and a margarita glass! |
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| All of the party favors! |
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| The thank you sign for the favors. |
All in all, it took a lot of work to plan this party, but it turned out great. I think all the guests had fun considering we didn't go to bed til the wee hours of the morning.
Until next time,
Cathy
