REAL PARTIES: Retro Chic Bridal Shower

This super-stylish bridal shower was designed/hosted by Alison Donahue and features the always-fabulous color palette of chocolate and blue, plus tons of pretty details like parasols, retro-chic coasters, paper-wrapped vases, and polka dots. Read on for tons of photos and a full recap, in Alison’s own words…

“I wanted to host a beautiful bridal shower for my dear friend Merritt.  Merritt is sassy and fun so no ordinary shower was going to do it for her. A lingerie themed shower was in order!

Since her wedding colors were blue and chocolate brown I decided to incorporate them into the shower.

The invitations were made by using supplies from Paper Source and asked everyone to bring a piece of lingerie for her to open.

The party was located at my house in Santa Clara, California.  I hung paper parasols from Luna Bazaar from the ceiling in shades of blue, brown and white.

My mom was a life-saver and helped me prepare for the party! She made two amazing table runners with fabric from JoAnn’s Fabrics.

We picked up flowers at Costco and grass from the Safeway floral section.  We wrapped paper from Paper Source around the base of each vase and tied off the ribbon with rings from Michael’s.  We tied the same rings around the napkins used for lunch.

The afternoon started off with blue martini cocktails, lemonade, and a homemade pesto and sun dried tomato torta. We used coasters from Hello Lucky (pictured in top image) to hold our drinks.

Lunch was almost all homemade and consisted of fruit skewers, spinach and mushroom salad, salt and pepper shrimp skewers, zucchini Madeleine’s, sausage and black olive roll, meatballs from Trader Joe’s, cucumber and chive butter sandwiches, homemade cheese puffs, cream cheese and salmon toasts and quiche.

After lunch the ladies chatted, worked on a scrapbook page for Merritt by taking Polaroid photos
with her, and prepared to play some games. We played 20 questions about Merritt, the “What’s In Your Purse?” game, and the “Pass the Teddy” game which is fun for a lingerie shower.

The ladies played for various prizes that I wrapped in boxes from Packaging Specialties and wrapped with paper and stamped and embossed stickers from Paper Source.

We wrapped up the day with desserts. We snacked on homemade heart shaped brownies, lemon macaroon tartlets, and mini cheesecakes topped with personalized flags from Notepolish.

As everyone left they picked up a goodie bag that contained a votive candle, and personalized matches saying “Merritt & Joe, a perfect match.”

All in all it was a very fun party and we sent Merritt off right for her honeymoon!“