Party Planner?!?!?!

In the last few months, I have been planning a lot of small parties for various events- birthdays, wedding showers, in process Bachelorette Party, etc and I have come to the decision that I really like to do this sort of thing. I like to plan out the menus, come up with decorating ideas and being the hostess. I love to make the invites and favors. I enjoy doing these sort of things because it is usually for other people and I love to see other's smiling!! I love to hear other people enjoying themselves at something I had a hand in. Perhaps I have missed this calling in life- I think I could do this on a small scale for fun! It might be fun as long as I don't have do a lot of talking in front of other people!!

Back in June, I did a Wedding Shower for my one and only sister, Jill. She is getting married on September 15 so she is having a fall wedding with chocolate brown dresses and orange and yellow flowers. I think it will be beautiful and love the color combinations. For the decorations, we used fresh cut Tiger Lillies from the fields by the building. They were growing every where and just happen to be my sister's favorite flower so it worked out great! A special thank you to my aunt and cousin who braved all the "creatures" and cut them for us!!









I made the invites (80- I know crazy but we have a really big family and actually only ended up sending about 60) and the favors (40- I put my foot down plus that was all the paper I had left!) The favors opened up and had a little bag of candy inside.









The best part of the whole shower was the food however- at least that is my opinion! We ended up having it at 11:30 so we did a brunch and it worked out really great. We had some breakfast and some lunch foods. We had quite a variety of foods both homemade (mostly) and store bought (for easiness sake.) We had homemade chicken salad and store bought pimento spread both served with crackers and my mom's homemade bread. My aunt made her tasty cucumber sandwiches and we had a wonderful veggie tray as well. There were also muffins, homemade cinnamon rolls, breakfast casseroles, breakfast Stromboli, and mini quiches.






We had the most desserts but they were also the best part. I think Jill liked the chocolate fountain the best as you can see! The fountain had strawberries, bananas, grapes, marshmallows, and vanilla wafers with it.

I made my first ever trifle! I know that some of you may laugh at that (yeah you Domestic Goddess!) but remember that episode of FRIENDS when Rachel makes that Ladyfinger and Peas trifle? Sometimes, things don't always work out but lucky for me, my Trifle turned out great! I used Chantel's Raspberry Chocolate Trifle recipe but put canned cherries in place of the raspberries because it sounded much yummier at the time. It was a big hit!! I should have put a few cherries on the top for that added little pop. Next time I will.

Jayne's Strawberry Banana Trifle was a huge hit as well but I did not put that one together. I was a little frustrated with the person who did because they just threw everything on top and it looked really messy BUT it tasted so yummy!! I'll remember to remember to screen my "workers" before I let them near the food next time!
My mom also made a Strawberry Cake from the Spring Kraft foods magazines. It has become one of our family favorites and we make it a lot when I go home. She also had a Chocolaty Chocolate Cake that she wanted to make which was one of the best I have ever had!
The food was delicious and everyone had fun- at least that is what they told me! The most important person was happy with the whole thing- my sister and let me tell you that sometimes making her happy is the key to world peace! =)