bridal shower
bridal shower
Originally uploaded by embem30. Last Saturday afternoon was my bridal shower; I've been meaning to write about since, but it took a couple days to get the pictures posted.
Alyson hosted it in her backyard in Menlo Park, with some help from Carmen. I ended up arriving a few minutes early, since the drive down 280 took less time than I expected. Carmen and Alyson were still finishing the set-up, so I took the opportunity to take some pictures before more people arrived. They had streamers hanging from the trees, along with lots of pictures: ones I had taken, ones of my as a child, and ones of the guests (or people who were invited but couldn't come). There were also some peach roses on the table.
Danielle, Becca, and Erica came before long, and Tracy arrived soon after. Sadly, Brandy was too sick to come. It was pretty much all my friends from work at YTC and Carmen. Luckily, everyone got along great. Erica loves fashion, so she was interested to hear about Carmen's collection.
After eating some food and drinking bellinis, we started in on the games. The first was the classic two truths and a lie. It was entertaining and informative. I learned that Carmen's dance teacher said she danced like a hyena (a drunk one, if I remember correctly).
From there, we went on to the quiz about Steve. For each question I got right, I got to open a gift. For each I got wrong, I had to open something from the "other" pile and put it on. It basically turned into Pimp My Bride. There are pictures on Flickr. I did relatively well, though, running out of real presents before I was very pimped out. Some of the questions were pretty easy: Steve's favorite cut of meat (hanger steak), Steve's stuffed animal as a kid (Eee the monkey, although they left out Eee-aw the donkey), Steve's high school footwear (his father's combat boots--didn't need the multiple choice for that one), etc. Other questions were more difficult. I took a wild guess at the day of the week that Steve was born (Thursday) and got it right. However, things like which A-Team character he thought he'd be... not so much. It might have helped if I had ever seen The A-Team. Erica, Tracy, and Becca had to leave before we finished the game, but I had finished opening the real presents by then.
After I de-pimped, we had some fruit tart and went on to the Guess Emily's Age game. Carmen had gotten several kid pictures from my dad, so Danielle and Alyson tried to label them with the correct ages. The only problem was that Carmen's master list could not have been labeled correctly. There were some obvious problems I could see, so either my dad gave her the wrong ages or they got jumbled on the sheet. In any case, it was fun to see which pictures were included.
The party finished around 5, and we spent some time cleaning everything up. Then, Alyson and I watched Footloose (the movie) while making some large eggs for Honk Jr. We spent about an hour and a half covering large balloons with plaster gauze, before running out of plaster gauze. (We ended up deciding not to use them, so it was for nothing.)
Anyway, the bridal shower was a lot of fun. Carmen and Alyson did a fabulous job with it. I was glad that the cold or sinus infection that I had been sick with the couple days before let up for the afternoon. I'm still sniffly, but it's much better now.
Oh, and the gifts... I ended up with a Williams-Sonoma gift card from Danielle, Erica, and Tracy, which Steve and I can use to fill in some holes from our registry after the wedding. (Good idea.) From Becca, there was a gift card for Bed Bath & Beyond. We didn't register for a ton of things from there, but the gift card will be good to put towards the Dyson vacuum that we did register for. (We figured we'd end up buying it with the completion discount after the wedding anyway.) Dan and Carmen got us a shiny new espresso maker, which Steve has already used a couple times, and Bonnie sent a Belgian waffle maker. We'll have to make waffles for breakfast tomorrow and try it out.
Brandy gave me my shower gift this week at work: a nice double-ended silicone spatula, some wine glass charms, and a very cute hostess apron. Maybe when I actually have time again, I'll wear it to make some cupcakes or cookies.