The future Bride and Groom . . . Surprise!
When my older daughter started planning her wedding she advised me there will be no wedding party. I realized that her sister and I would have to throw her a shower if she was going to have one. As I said in my blog about the wedding, it’s been 33 years since I have been to a wedding or shower. I had no clue what to do. To make it easy on us, I knew I wanted to have it at a nice restaurant. Right after the holidays of 2015 we started to look into places we could have the shower and what lies we needed to come up with so my daughter would not be suspicious.
First thing we had to do was come up with a list and get the invitations. As it turned out the list was not very long at all. We had 15 to 20 names and expected about 15 people to come. I had wanted to get a private room, but 15 people fell well below the 25 or 30 minimum required. I spoke to my neighbor, who attends weddings and showers almost every other week. She is my expert! She took me to a local Italian restaurant with a nice decor and easy parking. They told me they could set up the tables and give me a separate table for the gifts. It didn’t matter how many showed up the day of the shower, they could easily set the table accordingly. That was a load off my mind. I made reservations for April 24th, the day before my daughter’s birthday, and tell her to save that date because we are taking her out to dinner for her birthday . . . it’s her last birthday as a single woman. Never hurts to add a little guilt. She fell for it.
Me and my baby!
Now I had the little problem of getting her to dress up so she would look nice in the pictures. What to do? I explain to her that her younger sister has a few new dresses in her closet and was looking forward to wearing one to dinner. I asked her if she would wear something nice and we would all dress up since it’s a Sunday. She agreed. That was easy. She must really be preoccupied with the wedding because her usual inquisitiveness and tendency to ask unending questions were turned off. All she wanted to know is what kind of restaurant we are going to and that was it.
Meanwhile, I ordered a beautiful cake from local bakery. Just my luck that when we went to pick it up the main street the bakery is on was closed for some ridiculous “fair.” I had to walk three blocks uphill to pick it up and carry it back to the car where my husband was waiting. The cake was loaded with two layers of pudding so it was a little heavy, just sayin'. And before going for cake I went to pick up a few balloons, adding birthday balloons so I would not be “lying” about the birthday dinner. When we finally get home from those little errands, my husband and I decide to load up the car with the gifts. Since the number of people was uncertain, my younger daughter and I bought about 16 gifts. We wanted the bride to have a few things to open to make the day memorable. It might have been overkill. Oh well.
Meet the Parents!
I told everyone the date of the shower and sent the invitations out 2 weeks later, in February. To cut a long story very short, over the course of two months, the number of people coming kept dwindling from 15 to 12 to 11 to 9. But my future son in law’s mother said her two sons and husband would be coming to drop off her and her daughter in law at the restaurant. That’s when I told her the men should join us. I’ll have them set up a separate table for them nearby. I was really happy to have them there for this special occasion. I was especially surprised to see my future SIL’s brother and wife there. They had just gotten home at 1:30 AM the night before after a 20 hour flight from Thailand! And yet, less than 12 hours later, they were at my daughter’s shower. I will never forget the fact they were there. In fact all the right people were there to share this little celebration with us. We had a very nice dinner, the service was great. The gifts were opened. The cake was delicious. No one rushed us. Everyone enjoyed themselves.
We had a total of 6 guys who also doubled as photographers! We ended up with 15 people in the end. And since this was a Shower/Birthday, I think everything turned out even better than I hoped for and planned.
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