Beauty...
Be your own
kind of beautiful
Be your own
kind of beautiful
One of my dearest friends in the world is about to have her first baby.
I couldn’t be happier for Emese and her husband Mike. We have been friends though thick and thin and she has always been there for me. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding and is the best auntie ever to Brooks, so I was over the moon to be able to co-host with my ladies (Abby, Danielle, Lauren & Mimi.) I might add, Emese is going to be one Fabulous Mama!! Talk about pressure!!
Throwing one of my best friends a baby shower was sooo fun! We wanted it to be simple, chic and shall we say…freaking gorgeous! Above all, it needed to be a day that she will always remember. Emese’s momma, momma-in-law and lovely Aunt Erica came to town as well to shower our glowing girl (pregnancy looks GREAT on you, Em!!) with lots and lots of love.
We embraced the electronic age and sent the invitations via Paperless Post. I normally wait weeks waiting for those RSVP cards to come back, but we heard back from almost everyone in a matter of minutes. I also love that you can order any electronic card in printed form. We ordered her 10 paper invites so that she could frame one as a keepsake and had the rest on hand in case she came across people that she wanted to invite spontaneously.
I’m a huge fan of Paperless Post. I’ve been using them for years. I love, love, love all of their templates. They can be quite addicting. I once had 4 different drafts going for a surprise birthday party for Scott. They even have templates by Mr. Boddingtonwho made our wedding invitations.
The location was the divine Palma restaurant in the carriage house, which we chose because of its lovely ambiance and delicious food. (Thank you, Jessica for ALL of your help!) The place is so pretty we really only needed to add some personal touches to make it a perfect celebration for Emese and baby Gormley.
We created a stunning focal point with a hand painted wooden owl sign, surrounded by baby pics of Emese and Mike. It was made by Katie Barnett who also created all the gorgeous signs for my wedding.
Quick Tip: Never underestimate the power of a few well-placed votives. So chic, simple and the best part inexpensive.
We ditched some of the more traditional baby shower games in favor of a beautiful smelling idea of creating a custom scent for our mama to be. Original Scent was not only kind enough to create a scent bar for us to make Emese’s perfume, they also gave each guest a gift certificate to make their own scent!
Side note: I really want to know who created the evil baby shower game of putting chocolate into baby diapers and making you guess what type of candy it is. The grossest, right?!!?!
All the flowers as well as cake planning were handled by our dear friend and lifestyle maven, Mimi Brown. She turned her apartment into a flower shop for the day!! I asked her to give MollySims.com the scoop on her superb stems and game plan for the yummiest cake I ever had at a baby shower. Take it away Mimi…
I went early Thursday morning to the flower mart to check that the colors came in right – I wanted all soft baby pinks, blushes, baby blues and some soft whites – I got there and they had given me red and green ranunculus so I freaked out! I am SUPER specific, so it’s hard to make errors on my orders, but that’s why I check them! I found the baby pink ranunculus and some beautiful white and pink variegated spray garden roses that were just perfect. The coral charm peonies came in just right thank goodness because those are Emese’s favorite. – Even though they make her sneeze!! The tall skinny blue flowers are hybrid blue delphinium and the lacy bouncy green flower is ladies mantle. There is also a hot pink spray garden rose as well.
We had the cake made at Billy’s Bakery and I had a conference call with the cake decorator to make sure Hootie (the owl) had a few blue and pink leaves as well as green. The inside layers had pink and blue frosting – since Emese and Mike don’t know what they’re having! We even took bets at the shower if Baby Gormely would be a boy or a girl!! For an extra special sweet treat touch, we hadcustom M & M’s made that said “Baby Gormely.”
We did not keep it old school and keep Emese’s husband, Mike completely out of the baby shower picture. One of our shower activities was to write baby name suggestions on one card and a wish for Baby Gormely on the other. When Mike arrived (to bring his lovely wife flowers), we had him join in on the fun and they read the cards aloud to the group. Trust me when I say laughter and tears were shared by all!
My dearest Em,
You are going to be such an amazing mama! I’m so blessed to call you a friend. You are as close as a sister could ever be and I look forward to watching our little monkeys grow up together!
Xx, Molly
Here are a few of my fav pics from the baby shower!!!
