Ciao Lunedi

Good Monday morning everyone. I hope you had a nice weekend and are ready for the week to come. Ours will consist of a lot of trucks, a lot of dirt, more big rock, and a little bit of wallpapering too. Not by the same people of course. 

We had a fun weekend. I co-hosted a bridal shower in the Atlanta suburbs with two friends and we had the best time planning and executing this event. We are all long time friends of the bride's parents (we all went to uni together) so we've known the bride her whole life, and it was fun making the day special for her. 

For her momma too, because let's be honest, weddings are a lot about the bride and also a little bit about her momma. 

The bride's family has some Sicilian roots so we went with an Italian coastal theme and the colors were so pretty. We may have gotten a little carried away with all the bells and whistles, but once we started it was hard to stop. 

Hubs and I loaded the car early Friday morning and when I say loaded I mean loaded. We had a table, our own overnight bag, 6 tablecloths on hangers, several boxes of assorted whatnots including the guest book, the recipe binder, a glass jar filled with lemon drops for a game we were playing, a banner, the dog! (he got dropped off at the kennel en route) and 32 bottles of homemade limoncello, favors for our guests to take home. 

When we lived overseas hubs had an Italian co-worker whose wife would gift us a bottle of her homemade limoncello every Christmas. As we prepared to move back stateside hubs told him how much he was going to miss that and she shared her recipe with him. 

Delizioso! 

The shower was in the home of one of the co-hosts and it was the perfect backdrop to our theme. We planned to have lunch around the pool but of course it was 8000 degrees so a tent was borrowed from another friend, complete with two little a.c. units to go inside, and that helped. 

Still it was a really hot day, so we set up everything but the lunch portion of the shower indoors. 

We had some big balloons and a monogram floating in the pool. I volunteered hubs to get in at 8 am that morning to set the weights. 

Everyone had an opinion about where that monogram should be lol. 

It mostly stayed put. 

There were close to 30 people attending the shower. I didn't take any great pictures of the food because we were busy, but the food was wonderful. We knew we had a couple of gluten free diners on the guest list, and at least two vegetarians so we offered two entrees. There was Chicken Toscano and then a spinach and sun dried tortellini dish for the non-meat eaters, along with a Caesar salad and fresh bread. We had a separate salad for the gf folks because we aim to please. 

I feel like I want to tell you that big metal bowl was washed and put away at party time. Carry on. 

We made the tortellini dish, but ordered the Tuscan chicken from an Italian deli so it just needed heating. We put together Italian style charcuterie cups with mozzarella, tomatoes, olives, and salami as an appetizer, and we had desserts courtesy of that same Italian deli. 

This cake y'all..mamma mia! Molto bene! It's a lemon blueberry cake with a lemon buttercream icing, and I am here to tell you that icing was one of the best sweet treats I've eaten in along time. We also had tiramisu which was super scrumptious. 

We decorated with hydrangeas and lemons. Lots and lots of lemons. Jars of lemons, baskets of lemons, bowls of lemons...so pretty! And I loved using some of my Italian pottery purchased several years ago on a trip to the Amalfi Coast.

Actually it was more than several because it was our 20th and we just celebrated 40, but whatever, this isn't about me and how time goes by in the blink of an eye and babies you knew as babies are now somehow brides. 

There was a Prosecco bar because every shower needs one, right? 

Instead of a traditional guestbook we bought the bride an Italian cookbook and had all the guests sign a page. We also asked everyone to bring a recipe and had a binder for those. 

Because it was a large group we opted not to do a lot of group games. There were two things the guests could do during the appetizer hour including 'guess how many lemon drops are in the jar' and 'guess the bride's age' in a series of photos. 

We did have one fun guessing game as a group. One letter from the bride's soon-to-be new name was attached to each bag. Inside the bag was a kitchen item starting with that letter. Everyone guessed the item then the bride unwrapped and will keep the gadget. It's a fun way to gift some of the smaller kitchen items a couple has on their registry. 

The toughest letter was O which nobody guessed. 

Onion goggles. 

Every cook needs a pair. 

The groom's momma flew in from out of town for the shower and it was fun for the southern friends to meet her in person. I think she enjoyed the day and she even won a prize in one of the games. We had reserved seats for the moms to watch the gift opening. 

The host whose home we were in had her daughter-in-law coming to town for the shower, and she created our balloon arch extraordinaire. 

After she got to town at 9:30 PM!! the night before the shower. She's a trooper though and dove right in. And thankfully we had inflated all the balloons earlier in the day. 

I helped a little bit with the assembly so I could learn her technique, but I guess it's tedious no matter how you go about it. I think it's worth the trouble though, because balloons definitely add an element of fun to the day. 

This is the bride's chair. We rented the chair because like I said it was hard to say no to all the pretties.

Now,  do I have a picture of all of us with the bride? No I do not. There was a guest who volunteered to take pictures with a 'real' camera and she took bunches, so we'll have some soon. I might add one later, but in the meantime it's just the details. 

Also, being a bride is so special and I love celebrating them. Now it's onward to the wedding! 

This post is linked with the Hello Monday party hosted every week by Holly and Sarah.