With television shows like 'Four Weddings' on TLC, it is easy to take on the persona of a wedding planner. And what better tool to help us with our planning than Pinterest? There are thousands of ideas and details for us to play with. I'm still eagerly awaiting the day one of my sisters tells me she's getting married so that I can help plan her wedding; however, my youngest sister recently let me plan her baby shower. Not only was I going to be an aunt for the second time, but this was the perfect opportunity to put my party planning skills to good use!
My sister really wanted to be involved, so she started a Facebook event page right away. She created the page several months in advance. This was good and bad. For starters, she invited over 50 people. Of course, everyone was excited to see she was having a baby and almost everyone said they would go initially. This saved us some money because we didn't send out paper invitations. My sister was able to share with everyone her baby registry lists, what food would be provided, and answer any other questions people might have. Unfortunately, I don't believe anyone takes a Facebook event page as seriously as a paper invite and several people flaked out last minute. So, my first suggestion would be to send out invitations with a rsvp section if you plan on inviting a large group of people.
My first responsibility as the planner was to gather the baby shower prizes. I put together 10 gift bags - I bought blue gift bags from Target and large sparkly letters from Hobby Lobby. This way we were able to set the gifts on a table to spell out 'Baby Shower'. After this, I picked up small gifts that would fit in mason jar glasses. I highly recommend saving the receipts! I got a little carried away with the amount of prizes I bought and ended up returning about half of what I bought. Also, DIY (Do It Yourself) is a big trend on TLC and Pinterest, but keep in mind that it will not always save you money! I had a lot of fun being creative with the gifts and gift bags, but it was not cheap.
Second, I got on Pinterest in search of baby shower games. When it comes to baby shower games, it's helpful to know the group of ladies who will be attending. Paper games like 'Baby Bingo' would work best with a competitive but shy group. Active games like 'Pin the Bow on the Baby' would only be fun if you have an outgoing group who are willing to participate. Because I do not know all of my sister's friends, I chose to do both types of games. Initially, I thought that having 10 prizes meant we needed to play 10 games. I showed up to my sister's shower ready to play 10 games. I quickly realized it was much more fun and effective to simply play five games and give away two prizes per game. Ultimately, I think the guests were relieved with this decision.
My mom and grandma took over the food portion of the event. We kept it very simple by buying a large cake, veggie trays, and sandwiches, which kept costs down. My mom asked the deli workers at Hy-Vee to provide her with enough cheese and meat for 50 guests. Interestingly enough less than 50 people showed up, but nearly all the food was eaten. My tip for this would be to plan for error. It's inevitable that everything will not go exactly as planned. Having too much is better than not having enough.
Lastly, Pinterest is not always real life. There were several pins that I saved on Pinterest that simply did not work out when I attempted to execute them. True, it could be executor's error, but,I recommend keeping a realistic vision for your event. If you're not a professional stage for events, then your party probably won't look like it does on Pinterest.
Even though party planning is not a flawless process, we still had a blast!
