Simple Wedding Shower Decorations

My wonderful, handsome son, Michael, and his sweet, lovely fiance, Jennifer, are getting married this Saturday, February 18th... on my birthday! I don't sound a bit biased about any of it, do I? ;-)

Jennifer's family had a shower for them a few weeks ago at their church fellowship hall. Everything was decorated so pretty and was so well planned. A week later, we ~ me, my daughter, Jessica, my two sisters, Della and Barbara, and Della's two daughters, Mashawna and Deanna ~ had a shower for Michael and Jennifer in our church fellowship hall.

Until the showers for Michael and Jennifer, I hadn't been to one in quite a while and was definitely not up to date on what was in and what wasn't. So, we kept it sweet and simple, focusing on the couple (although Michael had to work that day), their gifts (of course!), the food (can't forget that either), and enjoying the company of a room full of family and friends. That sounds like a lot, but it was simple and not stressful at all.
Family and church ladies all came together and made it work perfectly! :)

Using a 1950s vintage wedding etiquette book, I made several a lot of folded fan rosettes from the pages. Some were glued together with my favorite Alene's craft glue and some were taped together with double-sided Scotch(R) tape.

I punched circles out of purple and yellow card stock with this Martha Stewart scalloped circle punch and the hearts were made from pages of the book. Most of the hearts were cut by hand because the heart punch I ordered didn't arrive until the morning of the shower. I did use it to punch all the hearts that we scattered on the tables and for a few larger rosettes. I also used a larger scalloped circle punch from Hobby Lobby for the larger rosettes.

We hung the rosette fans on a twiggy branch that I found in the edge of our yard a few hours before the shower. I used purple and yellow seam binding ribbon from Zipperstop for the ribbon hangers. If you order from them (they have great customer service, by the way) be sure to tell Jeff that Lana Manis sent you over!

{photos of Michael and Jennifer; also shown is a little felted flower pin I made for Jennifer; the yellow ribbon loops can be removed.}

I also used pages from the vintage book to make a banner. It's easy, just time consuming. I used Printmaster Silver Version 16, but you can use any word processing program. Choose your page size, your font style and size, and print a letter on each page. I printed a couple of sample pages to fiddle with the letter size before I printed the entire banner. I punched holes in the pages and carefully strung them on the seam binding ribbon. If your paper is delicate, you may want to reinforce the corners with a small square of paper where you will punch the holes.

{we were in the process of setting up in this photo}

I used my old ironstone platters and bowls for the food. They went well with the slightly aged pages of the book. Thankfully, they all made it back home intact!

About halfway through stringing the letters, I wondered if I should have just went with Jenn & Mike instead, lol! The stands were ones that Jessica and I made last summer to display my wreaths at the Lavender Festival.

{finished setting up but someone forgot to remove the foil from a dish of spinach dip.... hmmm, think that was me!}

Jessica made red velvet cupcakes with butter cream frosting, embellished with pretty little edible pearls!

I printed about fifty I Do phrases and cut them out to make little banners for the cupcakes. Jess taped them on toothpicks with double stick tape.

Jess also made French Vanilla cupcakes for those of us (yes, me) that aren't crazy about red velvet... I know, I know... how could one not like red velvet???

I don't know why I didn't think to print the words Red Velvet and French Vanilla to match the banners instead of hand writing them. I think it may have been a last minute craft and I didn't have time.

Everyone enjoyed the shower, Michael and Jennifer got lots of items for their new life together, and I didn't stress out at all! Now, let's see how I get through the wedding this Saturday....

Have a blessed day!
Lana
~*~