On Saturday afternoon, my mom got my girls and I together for a bridal luncheon at La Tavola. We had such an amazing time reminiscing and talking about the wedding Michael and I are planning. The food was amazing (I had the roasted chicken with pinot noir — believe me, it was yum!) and my mom put so much thought into the day, giving gorgeous favors of yummy Ruffino Chianti and wine passports to Italy. She decorated the table with fresh, colorful roses which I got to take home and are now all over my house. We ate downstairs in their wine cellar, which had some amazing ambiance. I really love wine (as does my mother and bridesmaids!) and she really incorporated some of my favorite things into the day. I had such a lovely time and it was so wonderful to feel like a bride for once! I’ve included a few fun pictures from the day — I wish I took more but was wrapped up in the moment and never had a chance.

I came across Chapeau de Gateau on etsy.com this afternoon during my weekly window peeping. I love to poke around and see what the fabulous and talented etsy craftspeople have been up to. Chapeau de Gateau makes mini cake toppers out of ribbon. They have a very preppy “Martha-chic” feel to them and quite frankly, I think they are darling! They would also look beautiful as decor elements for a bridal shower. Wouldn’t they be lovely as a card box (if made on a larger scale) or on the desert table for decoration?

This weekend I was super busy with an awesome event, where I got to really exercise my creativity and frugality for a relaxed and casual bridal shower. It was a lot of fun and we were able to do ALL the décor for under $200! Tomorrow I’ll give you the details on how we kept costs so low, and where you can get all these amazing items. Check out our pictures below, and be sure to click on the thumbnails for a larger version!

All the tables were adorned with a variety of chunky vases filled with white and yellow Gerbera Daisies that we hand wrapped in twine to give an elegant bouquet effect.

The yard was adorned with tissue paper “pom-poms” (or tissue flowers, if you prefer) that we hand made. They were all jeweled with small crystals for an added bit of bling, which ended up looking like dew on the petals! All the vessels were wrapped in ribbon in brown, brown & white polka dot, and green. We also made the brides monogram and incorperated it into the tablescapes with some twine and ribbon. I especially love the “mr. & mrs.” we created out of card stock and stamps from Stampin’ Up!

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We’re doing a fun bridal shower this weekend and our flowers for the event just arrived this morning! I wanted to share with you all the beautiful mini Gerberas we’re going to be using for the place settings. We get such a great discount through our floral vendor that for small affairs like these, we love to do the flowers ourselves. Luckily we only had two casualties, which I plopped in a tea cup filled with water since there was hardly any stems attached. Each individual stem comes wrapped in this petite meshing, and believe it or not, it really provides some security to the blossoms during shipping.

I really do adore these flowers because they are very playful, vibrant, and cheerful. You can use them in a variety of different ways, and what I enjoy most is they can be dressed up or down, depending on the vessel and other flowers surrounding them. They make quite an impact on their own as well. We’re going to group them by color and put them in small chunky vases and tall skinny vases. I also have some pretty thick and tall fuchsia mosaic vases that we’ll use with either the white Gerberas or maybe load them up with pillar candles. We’re also doing some inexpensive “dressing up” of our vases, which I’ll be sure to post photographs an and a tutorial of after the event!