Shower us w/ your love: Our Wedding Shower/Bride's night out

Ah, yes, we have returned home from our honeymoon and as we start getting settled into married life, I've realized...I haven't blogged -- really blogged -- since right before our wedding shower. That was more than 2 weeks ago, yo! So, to make up for lost time, I'm starting where I left off, culminating in wedding and honeymoon recaps galore!

So, to start off, let's talk shower shall we?

First, I insisted on couple's shower. I don't feel comfortable being the sole center of attention. Besides, I've always felt like this wedding was our wedding, not some me, me, me lovefest. The shower also fell on the weekend on my fiance's birthday, so it became a shower/birthday party. I let my mom and Maid and Matron of Honor take over the shower planning completely, which they insisted on doing. The only thing I did was give them addresses for the paper invites and email addresses for the evites. Oh, and I did win these cute shower paper invites from a blog giveaway:

Amanda from Dawn Correspondence customized this design for our wedding shower

I told my MOH and Matron of Honor not to spend too much money on the party, either. I think they pulled off a fun, cute event on a limited budget very nicely! The shower was a laidback, intimate affair with a few of our close family and friends. My MOH organized some fun games, including wedding taboo (which the fiance and I totally kicked ass in since --ahem--we're pretty knowledgeable on wedding stuff by now), a couple's trivia quiz and this game:

Those are my nieces trying to grab as many safety pins (closed of course) from a bowl of rice blindfolded. Actually a lot harder than it looks. The adults played, too, but the kids pretty much showed them up! I thought my MOH was pretty generous in prizes, too -- Coffee Bean and In N Out gift cards and 2 movie passes!

Playing Wedding Taboo

My MOH also made this wedding scrapbook for us and had guests write notes of advice and well wishes to put in it:

My Matron of Honor made these cute favors for guests to take home:

 

My niece admiring the pretty bouquet my Matron of Honor (her mom) arranged.

And there was food...lot's of it!

And there was cake -- a wedding shower/30th b-day cake!

Afterwards, we opened gifts...just some advice for folks attending a bridal/wedding shower: if you're going to give a naughty gift to the bride, let her know before she opens it...chances are, her mom or dad might be right there as she opens it (yes, it did happen!)

And later that night, my MOH and Matron of Honor took me out for a mini-bachelorette party at nearby Sevilla's for drinks and salsa dancing:

The day was such a lovely day and my fiance and I were really happy with how it all turned out. We gave our hostesses each thank you gifts: a massage at a nearby spa for my mom, a bracelet from Guy and Eva for my MOH, and a handstamped pearl necklace (with names of her three daughters) from The Vintage Pearl for my Matron of Honor.

Next up: Rehearsal Dinner recaps!