Giraffe Showers

Hive, I had my bridal shower a looong time ago. I mean, I've been married for six months now, so that should be indication enough that's it's been a while. It was actually last February, so we're getting closer and closer to the 'year away' mark. I loved my shower, and had always wanted to share it with you guys, but it happened right before crazy-wedding-frenzy-mode and I never got the time. I was thinking about it today, and I decided that there's no better time than the present!

My mom planned my shower, but after mucho begging from me, I got to help. I know, I know, Wedding Planning for Dummies actually told me that I should have absolutely no part in planning the shower, but I still lived at my parents' house, and I have all the crafting goodies my mom could've have needed (not to mention I love planning parties) so she let me help.

It all started with the invitation. Mama Giraffe chose a theme of "bright colors, polka dots, and stripes." She was worried at first that it didn't match our wedding colors, but it turned out great and was so "me." After an extensive online search for invitations and finding nothing, she had finally agreed to let me help and had me create them. She "art directed" the whole thing, I just created it on the computer for her. She made up a rhyme for the invitations, and continued rhyming throughout the rest of the shower.

She used bright colors for the rest of the decorations. I made the "Congrats" banner with my Cricut and scrapbooking paper. The photos on the table were in bright frames from IKEA and had a picture of us from each year Mr. G and I have been together.

One of the coolest thing Mama Giraffe did was buy a large platter from Target and porcelain markers from Michael's. Everyone signed the platter with the markers, and later my mom baked it at 350. That set in the marker so now I can have it forever :).
The centerpieces looked amazing, and they were all created by my mom. She bought bright colored paper plates from Party City, fun vases from Walgreens, and "Festival Pom" flowers from Jewel. The flowers were placed on the plates and each table had a different bright candy on them. I repeatedly visited the people at the Pretzel M&Ms table because they were so good (my table had gummy bears).
Mama Giraffe put together favors of mini loufas and mini shower gels and bath bubbles for everyone. The tags on the favor bags went with our rhyming theme and were labels stuck on to different scrapbook paper.
I also got a billion presents!
Whooo all our dishes!You might also notice my super super cute outfit. My dress came from Kohl's (new, especially for the shower, and on sale!), and the adorable and perfectly matching headband came from the amazing Mrs. Sloth. It was so very nice of her to send it my way and I appreciated it so very very much.

If you remember, Mr. G and I have a thing about Uglydolls, and he even used one to propose; My super talented and amazing friend Helena ordered me a Wage Uglydoll and dressed in up in my wedding dress. She later gave me Babo in a tux. This was quite possibly the best gift ever, and we displayed them at our wedding and now display them in our home.
Overall, my shower was one of the best days ever, which is way I had to share it with you. I had so much fun, and continued to have fun with my thank you cards.

Mr. G and I set up the presents in my parents dining room and posed with all our awesome new stuff. (Seriously, it was so awesome. It's hard to believe so many people were so generous and just bought new things for us).


So there it is - the best shower ever! I had a great time, and I think I even had a better time because I got to help plan all the fun and games (and boy were there games!).

Help plan your own shower? Did you enjoy it more because of it?