Last weekend I, along with five other fabulous ladies, threw a "Little Man" Couples Baby Shower for a friend of ours who is pregnant with her first; a little man ;-). Why a couples shower for a baby you ask? Well first off, although the woman carries the baby and does all the work, the father still cares, and wants to be celebrated as a soon-to-be parent. Second of all, we have a big group of friends so we looked at this as a good excuse to get everyone together for a large party.
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| The Hostesses... |
I'd like to share the immense success of our party with y'all in the hopes it might come in handy for you some day. After all, we got a lot of our inspiration from Pinterest and other blogs, so I'll consider this "paying it forward." The greatest success came in the fact that all of us hostesses worked incredibly well together and each of us used our own individual talents to add something special to the party. Obviously the first order of business were the invitations. Julie selected the one below from JoyInspiration on Etsy. She loved the color combo with robin's egg blue and steel gray, so those became our theme colors.
Then came the centerpieces. Kudos to Amanda who spent quite a few hours with the glue-gun putting all the centerpieces together (burlap wreath bases, wrapped mason jars, and a diaper flower bouquet), as well as all the table-runners! These things were AHHH-MAZING!!! So amazing that a guest actually offered to pay $200 for all of them to use at a shower she was throwing next month...no lie! Amanda got all of her supplies at her local Michaels Craft Store.
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| (If you are interested in an exact "how-to" for making these, comment below and I can email you the directions) |
Next came the "serving ware"/party favors. Caroline used robins egg blue table cloths, napkins, utensils, etc... These can be found at any local party store or online. Then, I ordered 40+ blue mason jars so that every guest could use one for their drink of choice. I used twine (you can use string too) and doilies on the jars so people could write their names on them with a silver sharpie. *Bonus - each guest got to take their jar home as a favor...this was a huge hit!! I ordered the jars from Amazon here, but you can also get them at your local Michaels Craft Store, along with the twine and doilies.
The fun didn't end with the mason jars though - oh no! We also had mustache straws (see pic above) and BeerStaches! Yes, you read that right...a mustache for your beer bottle, and they were hysterical. Literally every single male at the party had a BeerStache on their bottle; great for pics! (Hopefully this goes without saying, but we only purchased bottled beer...they don't work on cans - obvi!)
Next came the food. We wanted to do something different and delicious so we catered from a local taco restaurant that is phenomenal; and it didn't hurt that it was one of the mother-to-be's favorites. Plus, who doesn't love a good a-la-carte taco with brisket or carnitas, veggies, queso, guac, etc...!?!? We set up the "taco bar" in the house and then outside in the screened-in porch we had the chips & dip table. This worked well because the food line never got too long in the house, and people could munch off the chip table while mingling outside.
Then the guest book. Emily had the phenomenal idea to get an old Polaroid camera and props, and create a picture guest book. Every guest was asked to take a fun Polaroid of themselves, tape it in the book, and write a special message to the parents and baby. Check out how cute it turned out! I can't recommend this idea enough; something to treasure forever!
Now most baby showers have "party" games...and so did ours - wink, wink ;-). My husband and his buddy ran up to our local Dick's Sporting Goods and got the last KAN JAM available. "Kan Jam consists of one flying disc and two scoring containers that serve as goals." This was such a great thing to have for the men at the party for obvious reasons. This game occupied all of them (20 + men) for almost three hours and allowed us ladies to open gifts and still have "girly time."
And because there's always room for dessert, how about some homemade blue velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Shannon made these from scratch using her Grandmothers recipe...are you foaming at the mouth yet!?
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| Interested in the recipe? Comment below... |
So that's it for the planning, but since every good party needs a fabulous outfit, see below for what I wore!
*Final tip!!! We had a minor red wine spill on my Pottery Barn rug by the front door. I didn't panic, instead I used a trick I had heard of before...mix hydrogen peroxide with dish soap, stir it up, then use a rag to blot the wine with the mixture and Voila! I kid you not - it works like magic! ;-)
Labels: BeerStache, blue velvet cupcake, Couples Baby Shower, diaper bouquet, etsy, food, Gap, J.Crew, JoyInspiration, KanJam, lifestyle, little man, Marcia Moran, mason jars, Michaels, polaroid guest book, wine spill
