3 Lessons from the Wedding Day - by the Maid of Honor

The wedding is done, my best friend is a MARRIED WOMAN! Ridiculous. Amazing. Hilarious. I hope it sinks in soon, I haven't been able to make myself change her name in my contacts list yet. Who cares about the marriage license and her social security card and passport?? It's not official until the best friend changes the name in the phone!

To wrap up my blogging on this fantastic wedding, I wanted to share with you three things I learned from the wedding day:

#1 The Couple's Attitude Makes the Party - We've probably all been to weddings where the groom is basically dragging his bride out the door or the bride is so detail obsessed and overwhelmed that her plastic Barbie smile is downright painful. My friends demonstrated that if the couple are having fun mingling, dancing, eating, drinking and enjoying the attention without feeling the pressure of a dozen traditional moments for the sake of a dozen traditional moments, EVERYBODY HAS FUN.

#2 Parents Have Power, Especially Moms - What is scarier than a mother on a rampage protecting its young? Nothing. Not even a dental hygienist with a drill and a grudge. Moms and Dads of the couple, use your power for good, not evil. I was with the bride's mom most of the day and she was the best. Calm and having fun with a big smile the whole day! That's how it's done.

#3 A Snafu is the Better Story - So relax. We had to stuff the bride (in her gown) into a child-sized bathroom stall. The wedding party's bus got stuck behind an accident for 20 minutes on our way to the reception. One of the little kids made loud awkward noises and gestures all throughout my toast (I'm very excited for the future blackmail material though). Unfortunate in the moment... best stories of the night!! Enjoy it all.

The gorgeous bride and her not-so-little boy

How to Plan A Bridal Shower: Part 2

SUCCESS!!! WHEW. We had about 20 people show, a very respectable number but not so many that you want to run and hide under a draping table cloth, silently clutching a fistful of hors d'oeuvres. But seriously, it was great fun. I drew a lot from the hosting experience of the mother of the bride, including the importance of not stressing! If you're enjoying yourself, chances are your guests will as well.

Our menu was as follows:

• Christmas cookies and brownies
• Fruit and veggie trays
• Cucumber Cups Stuffed with Spicy Crab (courtesy of Domestic Fits)
• Onion and Goat Cheese Mini Pitas (2nd generation of my Onion and Fig Pizza, originally inspired by My Fancy Pantry)

After all this, we also baked a few pizzas from a local place that sells them uncooked. They were to die for, even though we may have overfed everybody! :) Let me talk about these Onion and Goat Cheese Mini Pitas, though. YUM.

Ironically enough, I left the fig butter from Thanksgiving at my parents house, which was kind of the whole point of this combination. I realized it at around 11:45 PM the night before the shower so I decided to improvise and skip that flavor all together. Honestly, I like this better than the pizza!!

Onion and Goat Cheese Mini Pitas

3 large sweet onions

1/2 package of Trader Joe's Chevre with Honey (goat cheese)

prosciutto, chopped into small pieces

pistachios, roasted and salted

Publix Mini Pitas

olive oil

salt

Slice and caramelize the onions in the olive oil and salt. This takes a a good 30-45 minutes so plan for it! (An awesome tutorial on how to do this on Serious Eats) Once those are nice and amber, place them in a mixing bowl and combine with the chevre, proscuitto and pistachios, proportions to taste. Slice your mini pitas in half and stuff with the mixture. They're good as in, they are amazing baked at 350 F until slightly crunchy and warm through. I have to admit, I was very pleased with these. They were gone in no time! (NOTE: there's something funky with the picture I took on my phone and I can't get to it... will make these again and take a real picture to post later!)

We didn't have to decorate since the mother of the bride had her Christmas stuff out (super handy) but I did put together:

• A Jar of Dates - invite guests to fill out a card with a date suggestion for the bride and groom to remind them to continue to "date" each other throughout their married life! Bonus points if you volunteer to babysit in the future. I hadn't planned on reading the cards aloud, but we did by popular demand and only had to censor one, haha.

• He Said/She Said on Facebook Cards - create a list of things posted or 'liked' by the couple on Facebook and see who can guess them correctly! I passed them out early and read the answers off as the official closer of the shower.

How to Plan a Bridal Shower

Remember my best friend I made the bento for? Her wedding is coming up in a few weeks and that means bridal shower time! (or is it just a wedding shower when the groom is also coming?) The shower is my job as the maid of honor and I have to admit, while I love hosting and cooking and inviting people over... I'm really bad at planning actual parties. I'm going to be real with you and admit I'm afraid I won't throw a cool party... and then I won't be cool and then cool people will be all like, wow, she's not cool. Sigh. The depth of my fear is powerful, right? HOWEVER. This is my best friend, gosh darn it, and I want to do a good job. So! Here's what I have so far:

Ask the bride what she wants
Super casual? Tea party elegance? A couples shower, so invite the groom and his guy friends too? Kids or no kids? Honestly, I didn't ask too many questions because the point here is that she doesn't have to plan anything. But getting a general feel is a good idea. When I realized the groom was coming, it changed my menu slightly to include a few more filling items.

Involve the moms
I decided to involve the mothers of the bride and groom. They are both great and wanted to help with food and such. One of them is letting us have it at her house, which is great because Patty's Place (my house) is waaaaaaay too small to host! I also put all three of us down as hosting the event.

Guest list and invitations
This was the tricky one since the bride is so doggone busy. I asked her to start with her wedding invite list and pare it down to our desired head count (around 30). That way I had all the addresses since she had already gathered them. Easy peasy. Try to mail out invitations around 2 weeks in advance... mine went out just over 1 week out and I'm a little stressed about RSVPs. Oops. Don't forget to include a note in your invitations about where the couple is registered.

Menu and Decorations
Here I have two pieces of advice. First, if you don't know things like how much food to prepare, what's easy AND good, etc... ASK SOMEBODY WHO DOES. Don't stress and just hope you get it right. Talk to some one, like your mom. Or the bride's mom. Or that guy who's always hosting dinner parties. Even the wealth of knowledge on the internet is no substitute for being able to pick their brains in person.

I enjoy the irony behind my second piece of advice: use Pinterest. Yes, I know what I just said. If you have an army of super creative and clever people in your life who can give you extensive menu and decorating ideas in person, ask them. Otherwise, use ideas like the little gems below from my Wedding Shower Snippets board.

I'll post a recap after the shower on Sunday. Hopefully the final pieces of advice will include Just Relax And Enjoy Yourself, It's Going Great!