I can’t believe in less than two weeks, my youngest sister Judy will be married! She is having two ceremonies, one in Los Angeles, CA that will be the civil ceremony and then one in Chicago which will be the Thai ceremony. As I’m writing this, I am just back a couple days (and still recovering) from her bachelorette party in Montreal. Before I go into Montreal though, I wanted to catch you up with what we did for her Bridal Shower in June.
I flew into LA and stayed in her apartment, and early that morning I accompanied her to watch her get her hair blown out at Drybar. Boy, I wish they had one of these in Portland! It was super cute with their hair dryer light fixtures. details like USB to charge phone, hook for purse, and the menu with accompanying photos of different hair styles that could be done. I believe J got the Cosmo-Tai, a blend of the Cosmo of lots of loose curls and the Mai Tai that hints at messy beachy hair.
This was a very pampering, laid back experience and I would definitely recommend it whether you go alone or with a group of friends or make it a party! I tell you, if I had one near me I would be going at least once a month because I have NO skill in curling my hair but I love the look. No wonder that Drybar even offers memberships to get your monthly blowout fix!
While waiting our ride pick-up, we browsed, oohing and ahhing, over the sweet confections next door at Magnolia Bakery. I resisted getting anything, but next month when I’m going to stay a few extra days after the LA ceremony, I totally plan on eating my way down this street in LA that also includes Son of a Gun and The Grove. I was only able to resist because I already knew her friend Angie was bringing her homemade delicious cupcakes.
For the bridal shower itself, we held it at Le Pain Quotidien in Larchmont Village. This was great for us because we did not have to pay a rental fee, and the manager there was so super flexible and accommodating. The ambiance was very light and airy and perfect for a shower! There was no time limit, no reservation fee or deposit, and we were allowed to bring in our own champagne (they will provide glasses and ice buckets) and desserts/cake.
We brought in some balloons and mason jars of flowers as decoration. One of the bridesmaids made sugar scrubs (as well as the floral arrangements you see) as a gift. Meanwhile I printed out little frames of icebreaker questions about memories of the bride, groom, and them as a couple but it turns out we didn’t even need them because everyone was so personable and friendly! For our games, we had a He Said She Said game and Guess the Bride’s Age game. We also had a Photo Hunt, but we ended up saving that to use at the Bachelorette Party instead!
As guests came in, we took a photo of each guest with the bride that we would then put together later into a Bridal Shower Memory Book, along with a card that each guest wrote to the bride while at the party.
The day before, I had glitterized the champagne bottles. I had pinned it as something cute on Pinterest and then saw that J liked it, so figured I guess I better do it for the bridal shower!
I loved the Tartines there, which are various kinds of breads topped with stuff. I wanted them all, but we narrowed it down to only almost all the tartine options, that’s all. Toppings varied from Curried Chicken Salad with diced tomatoes and scallions with harissa-cranberry chutney to Omega-3 of avocado, hemp seed, chickpeas, toasted seeds, baby greens and organic cold-pressed colza oil or Local Fromage Blanc with fresh herbs, scallions, radish and black pepper. We also rounded out those tartines with Organic Quinoa Taboulé with fresh mint, cucumber and tomato and Artisan Cheese Board and Mediterranean Crudité with hummus, babaganoush, tzatziki, and red pepper fromage with crudité.
Here are the wonderful cupcakes Angie made!
And you can never have too many desserts, so 3 of us brought even more sweets… Payal made the first two, and Lynn brought that plate from Susina Bakery I believe.
My contribution was an assortment of macaroons from Caffe Concerto. They have a lot of flavors to choose from, varying from Mango to Milk to Salted Caramel, Espresso, Cassis, Matcha, Earl Grey and more!
I would like to go to Caffe Concerto again… and eat everything. I really wanted to try the Milk macaroons but they were all gone by the time I came by!
What’s amazing about what you see before you is that the 3 main organizers, 2 were out of town (one in Chicago, I’m in Portland) and the one who was in LA was pregnant and just gave birth a few weeks before!! But I thought everything came together so well.
Have you thrown a bridal shower from afar before? What did you contribute, or what cute idea do you want to share from what you’ve seen from bridal showers you have attended before?
[…] A Bridal Shower in LA […]