Keeping It Simple

A dear friend of mine recently shared that she is expecting her first baby bundle. After the initial excitement settled it was time to think about hosting a baby shower to help her stock up on much needed mom supplies. There were, however, a few challenges to overcome on our way to throwing her a baby shower to remember... 

Challenge #1 - She lives in another city!

Challenge #2 - After she made plans to come back to town for her shower, we had about a month to get everything in order.

Challenge #3 - She is not the frilly kind, so the usual over the top cuteness was simply not an option.

Here is how we met these challenges and managed to host a simply successful baby shower for our dear friend. Since challenge two pretty much addressed challenge one, we will skip straight to challenge three. Most baby showers use some sort of theme to build from to create continuity between the invitations, decor, gifts and snacks. Since our mom to be is not the usual baby crazed lady, the standard options were out the window. There was a tentative theme for the baby's room - safari - but it was not 100% just yet, so that was not a safe bet either. After a round of email conversations about what to do, we decided to keep it simple and avoid a theme all together. Yes, I said NO THEME! (insert shocked gasp here...)

What we decided was to pick a style for the shower and build the invitations, decor and other elements to match. Since we had a quick turn on planning this gathering, the invitation selection was the foundation for the style. Needing to get the invitations in the mail ASAP my savvy co-hostess used an online source to select the perfect invitation style. The site allowed her to quickly customize the details and order the invitations which arrived in about a week. While they were in production, we wrangled the invite list from the mom to be and started working on the other elements. (Forgive the black out spots, but we thought it best to protect everyone's privacy...)

Now that we had a style we moved onto the food, decor and activity options. Without an overall theme to the shower, the food was a little challenging. We also took into consideration what our mom to be could not eat, as well as special requests (can you say Sprinkles cupcakes?) In the end, we aimed for a modern twist on afternoon tea. There were updated versions of traditional tea sandwiches along with some sweet treats. For the non-tea drinkers we made a traditional party punch and added some fresh fruit for anyone trying to appease their inner health nut. 

Sticking with the plan of keeping things simple the decorative accents were kept to a minimum, but still tied back to the selected style - modern, sleek and simple. Using the dining room table as a buffet station, a quilt with coordinating colors was used as a tablecloth creating a soft and unique display for the food. As a centerpiece for the table a diaper cake was displayed on a crystal cake stand to add a little whimsy to the occasion without being over the top. A word of warning when creating a diaper cake - pay attention to any decoration on the diapers! Thanks to the magic of marketing, there are all kinds of themes available for diapers now and if you are not hosting an Elmo theme shower, the Sesame Street decorated diapers may through a kink in your hosting plans. I got lucky for this shower by using the Target brand diapers. They have a printed pattern of blue and green polka dots which blended very well with our decor selections - thank goodness! A few baby toys and pacifiers were added to the ribbons on the cakes for a touch of baby and the "cake" was complete. The best part of the diaper cake? It doubles as a gift from the hostesses! As long as you don't use adhesives to build the cake layers, mom can easily dissect the cake and use the diapers when the baby arrives. Rather than make guests guess at all of the culinary goodies, we created food labels to match the shower style and used wooden clothes pins to display them on the table. To maintain the connection between the decor and shower invitation, disposable cups and plates in a variety of colors matching the invitation were used.

If you do a quick search on the internet for baby shower games and/or activities, there are a number of options that will pop up for your review. My only suggestion when selecting activities is to consider the mom to be and the guests. Having made the mistake of selecting incorrect activities in the past (and still hearing about it years later) I cannot stress enough how important it is to pick games that the mother will not want to strangle you for later. For this shower, I had direct access to the mother and sister of the mom to be and was able to enlist their help in a get to know you guessing game. Since most of the guests at the shower did not have the pleasure of growing up with the mother to be, we only knew the childhood stories that she cared to share over the years. To help guests get to know her even better and allow her mother to dish a bit, we worked together to create game in which guests had to match childhood photos to stories shared. It turned out to be a lot of fun and very educational! The other activity we added to the mix was a memory game that doubled as more gift goodies for the mom to be. Conveniently she registered for a baby bath station which became the holding container for a number of baby related items - butt paste, books, clothes, toys, etc. The collection was revealed to guests for about 30-seconds during which time they had to memorize the contents to the best of their ability. After covering the goodies, guests had 1-minute to write down as many of the items they could remember and the best memory won the challenge! Again, the best part is that the game doubled as a gift from the hostesses adding to the gift pile. 

As guests departed the gathering, they were offered a small token of appreciation. Keeping with the simple style and adding a dash of the modern tea party twist, everyone received a small dish in the shape of a tea kettle with the phrase "sweet-tea" in the center. It works as a small spoon rest or safe spot for tea bags to rest to avoid counter top stains. A tag with the same graphic as the food labels was added with a note of thanks to keep the visual continuity of the decor.

At the and of the shower, everyone left with a few more stories about the mom to be, a tummy full of yummy treats and happy anticipation of meeting the little one due to arrive sooner than later!