Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Jess's Engagement Party // MOH // February 2014

My baby sister is getting married. I get to be the Matron of Honor (makes me sound like a school marm or headmaster at a girls' school doesn't it?) which is awesome! 

So I have been trying to make her life easier, as much as possible. 
First on my list of duties was planning & throwing the engagement party. In general this event seems like the time to introduce bride & groom's families to one-another as well as bridal party members who haven't met yet. In this case most of Kalor's family wasn't able to make the drive in from Nebraska, but we still had some good mingling! We (KC, my parents, myself and anyone who contributed!) tried to put the focus on having fun and making Jess & Kalor feel special, stress free.  I think it actually went really well! Here are some of the games, details and touches that we added to make the night special!

I'm just going to add that I am new to this... so I was kind of nervous... but with some research I think it went really really well! Not claiming to be an expert, please share your expertise in the comments! 

The Decor:

Jess & Kalor decided on purple (plum) and silver for their wedding colors so we just went with variations of that for the party colors as well. I also tried to use white and little bits of teal, which worked out pretty well! 

I brought in my white cupcake stands from Target (shower gifts I received several years ago!) to display the beautiful hydrangea frosted cupcakes that my friend Brittany at B. Michelle Bake Shop made for the event. I added my thrift store upcycle owl to the mix because I thought he looked cute there!

I also brought in one of my hanging clip boards that a dear friend made us for our wedding for people to post cards & marriage advice on. It was cute, and it was fun for Jess & Kalor to read the advice after the party! I had to laugh because KC & I said basically the same thing! Of course mine was two separate LONG cards full, and his was one succinct one... but it made me smile! In case you are curious, we each said to make time for travel, dates and special events to give yourselves some 'getaway' time, however small, and to communicate about little irritations before they blow up into fights. If you talk about something that is bothering you up front it can be diffused so much more easily. This ladies & gents is why we've still never had a fight. :) 

My pride & joy of the event was this DIY Ombre Pom Pom Garland! (I hope to share my tutorial soon), but it was so fun and easy, and worked out really well for this party! (I've even been asked to make some for a Fiesta themed event at school!)


I used the extra coffee filters to make 'flowers' and taped them to pencils (aka, stems) and placed them in an antique vase that I got at Goodwill for just $2!

Jess & Kalor are super fun, so they chose to get some purple and silver balloons to add to the mix, which tied it all together nicely!

The Games:


The first game we played was The Ring Game. I bought two bags of cheap-o 'metal?' rings from the Hobby Lobby wedding section for $2.99 each and KC hid them around their duplex for the guests to find. The one who found the most got a prize! -The kids pooled their rings and took first! 


The second game was called The Shoe Game. Jess & Kalor sat back to back in chairs each holding one of their own, and one of each other's shoes. We asked them a series of questions like 'Who is taller?' 'Who sings in the shower?' and 'Who is more likely to sunburn?' and they answered by holding up the shoe of the person who the question was best answered by. Example: for the question 'Who is taller?' they both held up Kalor's shoe, because he is taller than her. And so on. It was pretty funny. :) 


The third game was a Couple's Quiz for the guests. We asked 15 questions about Jess, Kalor & their relationship that the audience had to answer. It was a great way for all of us to learn about the two of them. The person with the most right answers won a prize! - Way to go mom!


The fourth game was a Couple's Quiz, where they had to answer questions previous to the beginning of the game, and then had to guess what the other person's answer was.  This one was also pretty funny. My favorite was when we asked 'What did the other person say was his or her celebrity crush?' and Kalor answered that he thought Jess's was Justin Timberlake and she says 'No! It's Dr. House!' (Hugh Laurie)... hysterical. She's just like our momma. :)

The Food:

My dad graciously agreed to make his legendary BBQ for the event, down to the sauce. Legit. My grandmother made homemade rolls and salads. Kalor's family pitched in with sodas. It was delicious!

Of course, I already mentioned that we had gorgeous cupcakes from B. Michelle Bake Shop, we chose half vanilla, half chocolate to try to please everyone. We got so many compliments on these gorgeous treats! :)

Paper straws in the themed colors added a fun touch!

Favors:




I wanted to do favors, because I think they usually get cut from wedding and party budgets because they are 'unnecessary' but I think they are super fun. Since I knew there would be about 30 people I wanted to choose something cheap enough for me to buy, but still theme appropriate and cute. I liked the idea of ring pops and rock candy, but I couldn't see the adults eating them. So I found a pin on Pinterest that encouraged me to do 'He 'Popped' the Question' pop corn bags for the car ride home. KC so amazingly bagged up all of our popcorn in those cone shaped treat baggies (you know the ones you fill with jelly beans to look like carrots at Easter?) and we stuck them in a basket with a sign. We had some leftover, but who doesn't enjoy leftover popcorn? ;) 

Printouts:

This seems kind of silly, but labeling everything consistently makes a big difference in presentation. I used PicMonkey to make some images to label the advice board, favors & to write out the questions for the games. Of course I did this in a rush.. the day of... RUNNING through Office Depot.. but you know. :) Had I been really on it, I would have labeled the Strawberry Lemonade the same way! :) haha

All in all the party went well! We had a lot of fun laughing and playing games. I was glad to spend time with my family... and dad's BBQ hit the spot! 

What have been your favorite showers, wedding parties & shower games?

Seriously suggestions appreciated!! :) 

Thank You for Reading!

Alexandra

3 comments:

  1. Who is taller than Kalor? He is the tallest in his side of the family and dad is the shortest

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cute! I particularly like the "he popped the question" popcorn treats. :)

    ReplyDelete

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