This past Saturday I co-hosted a baby shower for a dear friend. I'm so glad I wasn’t on my own this time as it turned out to be a large affair. We ended up with over 50 guests! I kept joking that weddings are smaller than this shower. Still it was a blessing to be involved in something that held so much love - it really was a special event for a very special lady.
My co-host and I started planning the day we found out she was expecting back in March. Our reaction we pretty much "Oh congratulations, you know we are throwing your shower right? When do you want to have it?". All the advance planning and prep was probably a good thing since our friend and her husband wanted the gender of the baby to be a surprise. I had NO idea how gender specific the baby shower industry is. Dude does everyone find out their baby's gender ahead of time? Of course we worked around it but it did take a bit more effort and our choices for things were rather more limited. So those of you thinking of hosting a he/she baby shower, you have been warned!
Of course we had way too much fun planning and keeping things from the Mom-to-be. The decorations were a big chunk of my responsibilities and I was so pleased when they came out better than I expected. The nursery’s theme was Jungle so that is what we went with, but in brighter, more primary colors. The space we were renting was a great price but a little white and cold so we went for COLOR! The tables had with multi-colored plastic tablecloths, zebra bandanas as toppers and were decorated with fresh flowers (the Mom-to-be's only request), framed art for the nursery (drawn by me in crayon, based on the fabric of the nursery), an assortment of toys and small items off the gift registry, votives filled with crayons, bright paper cups filled with M&M's & Skittles and of course confetti. 'Cause it's not a party without confetti.
The use of bright colors, mixed with a little black, was continued in the tablecloths/toppers of the cake table, food buffet, photo/guestbook table and the gift area - with lots of balloons and streamers everywhere to tie it all together.
For the seat of honor we stole he Mom-to-be's rocking chair (with permission!) and surrounded it with a quilted wall hanging (a gift we were told about ahead of time) and my father's rocking chair holding a stuffed lion guarding the all-important box of tissues. The lion holding the in my rocker was my favorite part of the room. :>
Thanks to all the planning and some luck the day went off without a major hitch. The decorations came together better than I'd hoped, the food was super yummy (a group effort), we were right on schedule (no mean feat with that many gifts to open!) and clean-up was a breeze. I still came home feeling like I'd been hit by a truck but it was totally worth it! Now we just have to wait a little longer for "Monkey" to make his/her appearance!
More photos from the shower cane be found here
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