Not Your Typical Bridal Shower

Last weekend I had the honor of decorating a shower for a dear friend from my home church and his bride-to-be. Jon and I grew up together... Sunday School, Youth Group, countless retreats, trips, and insane lock-in memories all include Jon Maley. Truth be told, he was kind of a punk in 8th grade, which I witnessed first-hand from the opposite side of the confirmation table in the church library. Bless.

Carley is best friends/roomates with my love bug Nikki. It's so funny how God works things out. :) Anyway, since I'm a Facebook/Pinterest stalker, specifically when I'm looking for decorating inspiration...this camping/wilderness/adventure theme is what I came up with for this couple. It seems like they're always posting about water skiing, rock climbing, biking, hiking, canoeing...etc. Not to mention they look like models while doing all of these things. Think I'm kidding?

Exhibit A:

Weird I put someone else's engagement picture on my blog? Only weird if you let it be weird. 

Anyway, the decorations for this adventuresome couple...Donna Seehusen was shower committee president and I think she thought I was crazy on more than one occasion when I started decorating the tables with Josh's flannel shirts. I ALWAYS HAVE A VISION! WHEN WILL PEOPLE JUST LEARN TO TRUST ME. ;)

This might have been my favorite little set-up. That's a camping chair borrowed from Jillynn; my dad's legitimate vintage sleeping bag from the 70's; a flannel blanket that is over 30 years old (a gift from my mom to my dad before they were even married); a boat that used to be a decoration in Brecken's nursery (thanks again Jill); and a flannel canoeing picture of the couple to fit the decor.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Showers at my church tend to be pretty traditional. Questions like, "But where will we put the gifts if there are all these decorations on the table?" were met with answers from a true temperamental designer, "THEY CAN GO ON THE FLOOR OR BEHIND THE TABLE BECAUSE THIS IS MY VISION OKAY?!" ;)

I love that I can drag these chalkboards from here to kingdom come and they work for almost every theme in every setting. And when they get scratched I just throw another coat of paint on them. Which is actually what we did the day before the shower in the middle of decorating. I actually didn't even change the words on this one straight from my house because...I did it back in January and it was reeeeeally hard to get like that. So just...ok?

Flannel blanket with some woodsy touches along with a few more rustic engagement pictures and TA-DA! Camping Bridal Shower Perfection.

Most bridal showers don't include a cow skull on the food table?

Oh.

Even though this shower was at 9:30am, I still really wanted a way to write, 'I love you s'more' on a chalkboard somewhere. When I asked, a lovely shower committee member volunteered to make s'more bars with golden grahams in the recipe and I was giddy they were so perfect for the theme.

I drug a couple of my smaller-easy-to-transport Christmas trees home and put them smack on the middle of the food table. This time I had questions like, "But where will we put all the food that's supposed to go here?" "THE FOOD WILL GO AROUND THE DECORATIONS BECAUSE DECORATIONS ARE EVERYTHING OKAY." ;)

The flannel garland laced around the trees and on the head table is just re-used from the shower we threw Susan last year. At the time I thought to myself, "I could probably just get rid of these because what are the odds I'll ever throw another camping shower again?" Baaaahahahahaha.

Now this is where Pinterest stalking reeeeeally came in handy. I had chalkboards coming out my ears at this shower so I knew I wanted something cute on this one, but wasn't sure what. I checked Jon and Carley's Facebooks for statuses or quotes...or anything I could put this chalkboard. Then the morning of the shower I realized I could check all of Carley's Pinterest boards! I found something that looked like this, copied it and VOILA. Jon actually asked if he got to keep this. The answer was no, but I was happy they liked it so much. ;)

I just love Seehusen's...I love 'em all to pieces.

With the groom!

Truth be told...I wanted the whole shower committee to wear flannel shirts; have all the shower attendees sit on the floor on sleeping bags; and have the couple open presents from a tent set up on the stage...I go pretty hard when I get a theme in mind. Fine I know that would have been ridiculous, but it would have also been pretty awesome AMIRIGHT?!

MmB