Above, me and my aunt Linda. Pictured below is the setup at the Waterman Grille and the cake.
An amazing brunch at the Waterman Grille (thanks, ladies!).
By Courtney Danielson
A week ago I got to have the amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience of celebrating my bridal shower with my closest family and friends.
First, I would like to take the time, again, to very publicly thank all of the great women who put my shower together. My mother’s best friend, my future mother-in-law, my grandmother, one of my aunts and my future sister-in-law, along with assistance from my amazing mom and bridesmaids, threw me a truly amazing shower on Sunday, September 21.
As wedding planning got underway in my family, we soon ran into the issue of what to do about the shower. While traditionally bridal showers seem to be thrown by the bridal party, it was pretty quickly decided that my bridesmaids wouldn’t be handling it. They’ve all got major things going on in their lives right now (new jobs, kids…or still being kids themselves) and I didn’t feel that it was fair to ask them to spend money on their regular bridesmaids’ duties and to shell out for a shower. But there was no reason to worry: My mom’s best friend quickly took the reins and gathered the troops to throw an amazing event.
Once it was decided who would be hosting the shower, the next task was picking a date. This was pretty much where my involvement began and ended. Although my wedding isn’t until March 2015, I didn’t want to wait until closer to the wedding date to have the shower. Between potentially bad winter-y weather and the holidays, I thought it would be best to have the shower in early fall. While looking through the calendar we ran into a lot of the same issues we had while trying to decide on a wedding date: avoiding close family members’ birthdays (hi, Mom!), avoiding business trips for key guests (hi, Mom, again!) and, of course, just finding somewhere that had the availability.
Luckily, the venue of choice, the Waterman Grille in Providence, was available for Sunday, September 21, which happened to be last day of summer and exactly six months until the wedding date — perfect!
The guest list was the next challenge. The space comfortably seats about eighty-five people (with room for a cake table, a gift table and a seating area for the bride to open gifts) but our initial guest list was ninety women.
Yes. Ninety.
That’s an entire wedding guest list for some couples, but with my ginormous family, it was just the essential women.
I don’t know much of what went on during the planning phases of the shower (while all of those amazing women were planning menus and collecting RSVPs I was trying to decide if I wanted to register for a powdered sugar sifter), but it was pulled off (as far as I know) without a hitch.
Here are some of the vendors we used:
- Venue: Waterman Grille, Providence
- Florist: In Bloom at Quality Fruitland, Seekonk, Mass. (also handling the floral arrangements for my wedding — they’re AMAZING!)
- Cake: Cakes for Occasions, Danvers, Mass. (a 100 percent nut-free bakery!)
- Hair: Melanie Cambra at ZoCo Hair and Body, Bristol (shameless plug, she’s my aunt!)
- My cousin Hailey took the photos, I have no idea if she’s available for hire (she’s still in high school, can you believe it?!) but she did such an amazing job!
lovely function