Good Monday morning, my friends!
I hope you had a fabulous weekend and were able to relax and spend time with family and friends.
On Friday night, it was quite chilly in Ocala, so Ryan and I went over to our friends Eric and Amanda’s house and spent a cozy night by the fire!
Eric and Amanda have a screened-in porch with a place for a fire, so after we gave the fire a chance to build some heat while we ate dinner inside, Amanda and I grabbed some blankets joined the boys by the fire for the rest of the night. It was still pretty cold, but it was fun to be outside and feel the warmth of the fire.
The rest of our weekend was fairly uneventful, which was exactly what we wanted! I will be traveling to Park City, Utah later this week (I can’t wait!!!), so a relaxing weekend at home perfectly suited me! Plus, I had a lot of projects to work on because my sister’s bachelorette party and bridal shower are quickly approaching!
I managed to design, print and assemble her bridal shower invitations on Saturday and they will be placed in the mail today!
(I apologize for the intentionally fuzzy picture – Just trying to block out certain information for safety’s sake.)
My favorite part of the invitation was the mini envelope tucked inside of the invite that I stamped with an adorable stamp I found at Hobby Lobby.
All because two people fell in love.
I tucked a little card inside the envelope that requested a recipe from each one of the bridal shower invitees (a recipe card was also included for them to use) so Leslie and Ross will hopefully have a great collection of tried and true recipes to choose from when they’re in the mood to play around in the kitchen.
My mom and I are working hard to make Leslie’s bridal shower special. Leslie and my mom did such a wonderful job on my bridal shower and I want to make Leslie’s shower incredible, too! If you guys have any advice or ideas for me, please let me know!
Workout + Breakfast
Today’s workout focused on strength training my biceps and triceps. Once Ryan and I were done at the gym, we headed home for breakfast.
For lunch on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend I made myself an almond butter and jelly sandwich and that’s all I wanted for breakfast again this morning.
So basic. So good!
Served with a clementine on the side for a pop of sweet citrus!
Hope you have a great Monday!
Question of the Morning
- Do you have any advice for me regarding my sister’s bridal shower? I’d love to hear any suggestions you may have!
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as a woman who ELOPED Ive gots no shower ideas—I just had to chime in and say it made me SMILE to see yer lunch.
it’s how we always eat around here.
food my grandma would recognize.
xoxo
I love the recipe idea, your sister will have a great collection to choose from!
Oh Julie, I am sure you will plan the best bridal shower! You always put such a special touch on things. Your sister is blessed to have you!
One of my co-workers went to a bridal shower (she hates all the same-old games) and said a game they played that actually was really fun was asking the groom a bunch of questions ahead of time (like the Newlywed game?) and then having the bride guess what he said. She said it was hilarious. I’d stay away from the toilet paper wedding dress game. Everyone I’ve talked to has hated playing that game.
Pinterest is my go-to. I wonder if you could poll some of your friends on their showers and things that they liked and disliked? You’ve been in a bunch of weddings and I bet some of those girls would have insight you could use.
I can’t even remember the last time i had a AB & J sandwich. That transports me back to grade school lunches!
Love the recipe card idea. You could focus the bridal shower on different aspects of Leslie and Ross’s relationship.
Your bridal shower invites reminded me that I’m supposed to be researching for my mom’s (hopefully semi-surprise) retirement party… 😉
Exciting!!! Congrats to your mom!
My mom and I did the recipes for my sister-in-law’s shower. It was a big hit. We also asked people to bring a couple of ingredients from each recipe (mainly canned items) and we had a big tub at the front door where people put them. My brother and s-i-l were very young so they needed to start a pantry!
can’t go wrong with almond butter and jelly sandwiches! 🙂 is your sister a wine drinker? for my friend’s bridal shower, we asked everyone bring a bottle of wine and write a little note to go with it. it started off her collection quite nicely 🙂
Love that idea!
Did you make the invites yourself? I love the combo of fonts/colors that were used. If not what site did you use? I am throwing 2 showers/bachelorette parties this spring/summer so I am hoping you get a bunch of comments on this post 🙂
I did!! I made them using PicMonkey.com. 🙂
An almond butter an jelly sandwich sounds like perfection! At my cousin’s bridal shower, everyone wrote their favorite recipe out on a recipe card, which was subsequently placed in a recipe box and given to the bride to be. She loved it!
Honestly your bridal shower will be PERFECT no matter what you do. You are always so creative! Me on the other hand….I’d spend all day on pinterest just to get some ideas.
Park City, Utah!? That sounds amazing! I would love to go there sometime!! I know my husband would it is like his running dream to live there!
I love keepsakes that the bride can be reminded of long after the wedding. At my shower, one of the bridesmaids thought it would be nice to have a table with flat black stones that people could leave a wish or piece of advice on for me. I think they called it a wishing well. I loved it! I have a beautiful glass bowl with all of the wishes at home that I take out every once in awhile.
Ah love what you are doing so far for the shower! Where did you design those invites from? 🙂 I’m getting married in September so any planning advice welcome!!! I have done the done the gum game at my friends showers and it’s a total hit! (when the bride and grooms answers don’t match, the bride has to chew a piece of gum)
I designed them using PicMonkey.com! You can design and save images so they’re high quality enough to print at home on nice paper. It definitely saves $$!
Have fun in Park City!! Hopefully the snow will be still be decent when you arrive!! If you spend anytime in Salt Lake City make sure to try out the restaurant Eva’s (it is fabulous!) and the next morning their sweet bakery for some really tasty treats!
Awww that must be so fun to get to plan you sister’s bridal shower! I’m no good for suggestions, I’ve only planned one bridal shower and she wanted to keep it simple: brunch at a nice restaurant and opening gifts!
Those invitations look beautiful,but just a question – does the date say Feb 8, 2013?
They have been fixed! Thanks, Ashleigh!
Your sister’s lucky to have such a great MOH! The invitations look great, and I’m sure the shower will be so cute! A couple of my friends have done what Holly said – have each guest bring a favorite recipe to create a collection for the bride-to-be. One friend’s mom asked us each for 4 recipes.. that was overkill. But one recipe is perfect!
I love Almond Butter. I make my own and its so easy its comical. You should try making your own and this way you can do it salt free and palm oil free 🙂
There are so many things you can do for your sister’s shower to make it amazing. I love slideshows or a games where you ask questions and pre-video the groom giving the answers. Then you play the answers at the shower. Those are always fun and interactive!
Just don’t get stressed and make sure to enjoy it! Do you have the vast majority of it planned?
Mmmm my fav! pb&j’s and clementines! The invites are adorable!
Your sister and I will be celebrating together…my baby shower is on 2/8/14! Like Leslie, I am so blessed to have sisters who are dedicating so much of their time planning the shower. I am so appreciative and I know that Leslie is, too! Congrats!
This isn’t for the shower but for the wedding. Someone put anniversary cards on each guest table and had the guests write to us for that anniversary. Each anniversary we get to open the card marked with that year (we had 15 tables so will do it for the first 15 years of marriage) and read what special and funny things the guests at that table wrote! It was such a great idea and makes you really think about your wedding, and those that celebrated with you, on every anniversary! 🙂
This is such a wonderful idea!
Those invites look awesome- I can’t believe you did them with picmonkey! That site is the best 🙂
I think you are already doing great! Love the recipe card, and the print/lay out of the first cards!
YAY! for coming to UTAH!! Can we plan a lunch or coffee date?!!!
For my cousins shower we each bought her a Christmas tree ornament, and this Christmas (her first married Christmas) she got to think of each of us and how loved she is as she put them on the tree!
Ooh, definitely craving almond butter right now!
For my sister’s bridal shower, I made a scrapbook ahead of time and had all of the guests write inside. My aunt probably had the cutest gift though. She folded dollar bills into bows and hung them from ribbons inside a white parasol.
I love the recipe idea – one of my showers did that too and it was great!! And I LOL’d when I read that it was cold in Florida. . . it is currently -19 in MN right now. 😉
ah I need some bridal shower planning tips! I am planning my friends in march! Where did you design and print these from? They are soo cute!
I designed them using PicMonkey.com 🙂
JULIE! You’re coming to Park City?! That’s only like 40 minutes from me. Would love to meet up with you for coffee or something if you’re free! Let me know!
I just attended a bridal shower where they passed around an address book for every attendee to write in their current info (name, address, phone, birthday, anniversary, ect..) for the bride and groom. I think this is a great idea-people move and change info so much these days! I wish I had this at my bridal shower as some of my thank-you cards (and invites)were returned due to an incorrect address!
The last bridal shower I went to one of the girls took all the ribbons and made it into a bouquet. She tied them to a paper plate. I though it was so pretty!
I love the recipe idea and recently did one for my friend’s bridal shower.
For my sister-in-law’s bridal shower, her sister created a custom scrapbook. Everyone involved in the shower was given a page (or 2) to do whatever they wanted with, and then her sister put the whole thing together. There were pictures, memories, quotes, etc. The result was beautiful, and she was definitely in tears the whole time she was reading it 🙂
That is so thoughtful!
Friday was SO freezing for us Floridians! We enjoyed a bonfire at a friends’ house as well.. all joking this was probably the only night of the year we would get to enjoy it haha I was just swooning over the cupcakes you had at your bridal shower – they looked amazing!
Not really a bridal shower idea, but my girlfriends threw me a surprise engagement party when I first got engaged. They bought a really nice bottle of wine and each girl wrote us a note and tied it to the bottle. We weren’t allowed to open the bottle or read the notes until our first anniversary. I loved it and I especially loved being able to read all the notes from my friends a year later!
That recipe card idea is awesome!
At my shower, we played the “Don’t say the word ____” game. People usually play it at baby showers, where you can’t say the word “baby”. Everyone gets a ring (or token of some sort), and whenever someone says the forbidden word (I think at mine, it was “wedding”), whoever catches them takes their ring/token. The person with the most at the end of the game gets a prize. We had a lot of fun with it!
I had three bridal showers when I got married and they were all three totally different, but equally fun! One of the games we played that was really fun (mostly because there were a lot of older women there ;)) was for everyone to write their “celebrity crush” on a piece of paper and we all had to guess who picked it, then the winner got a prize. To hear some of my friends’ mom’s celebrity crushes made the day so funny!
Good luck! I’m sure it will be a blast no matter what. 🙂
Love the invitations! However, I think you have the date set for 2013 when it should be 2014.
That’s what I said, but she just made the picture blurrier instead of acknowledging the error. Hope she sees it before she sends them out!
Don’t worry! They are fixed!
Those invitations look really cute. I love planning bridal and baby showers. Park City, UT will be beautiful right now!! That sounds like a lot of fun.
Super cute invites! I hosted one bridal shower in my life. It was beautiful, but the best part was one game we played. We divided the guest in teams of four of five players, one person served as the model and the other team players made a wedding dress on her with toilet paper. The talent was unbelievable. I’ve also seen people display wedding dresses from the mother of the bride, mother of the groom, sisters of the bride and groom and aunts of the bride and groom. The guest would then have to guess which dress belonged to which person.
I LOVE the recipe card idea! That’s genius and something I may steal for my own wedding invitations! Also, the invitations look great!
Love the planning you are doing for your sisters bridal shower! Here is a shower idea I thought was cute while searching for ideas for my sisters shower. Here’s a link: http://loveandweddings.blogspot.com/2012/06/bridal-shower-game-how-sweet-it-is.html
It would be cute if you had some of these candies available at the shower 🙂
Also, if those in Florida need a Monday pick-me-up, just know that I’m from Minnesota and currently the temperature here is -23, with a wind-chill factor that makes it feel like -47 degrees. Brrr…
Happy Monday! 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing!
My sister did something similar for my shower with the recipe cards. On the back of the cards, everyone wrote their favorite memory with me or of me. My sister took all of the cards and placed them into a recipe book that I cherish. I can make a family recipe and read their kind words, too. Such a thoughtful touch.
Those are adorable invitations, I love the recipe idea!
Those are adorable invitations, I love the recipe idea!
Those are adorable invitations, I love the recipe idea!
I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was a great idea. Instead of a sign in book (what exactly are you going to do with this book forever?), they used a good bottle of champagne that everyone signed with gold sharpies. The couple can save it for their 1st anniversary to have with the first tier of their cake!
I also did a “Daddy Knows Best” video for a baby shower like the dating game, which would be really cute for a bridal shower.
A really fun thing I saw at a wedding recently was for the garter. The groom did not like to dance in public. The whole wedding lined up to made a tunnel to the bride and before he was allowed to take off her garter he had to dance his way to her. He was so embarrassed that the groomsmen ended up carrying him on their shoulders while they danced down the aisle.
Hi Julie. I hosted a shower for my nephew’s bride and asked everyone to bring a pair of panties for the bride. We put up a little clothesline and everyone hung their pair on as they came in. The bride was then asked to guess who each pair was from. It was a lot of laughs and the selection was really fun. The panties were in addition to their gift so you don’t need to spend a lot on them just be creative.
Guests brought recipe cards to my shower too! It was such a thoughtful touch that I loved. I can’t believe I’ve been married 6 months! (Today!!) I’m so excited for your sister!