French Themed Baby Shower

So today we threw our Event Planner a baby shower for her brand spankin' new baby girl! It was a lot of fun, but kinda intimidating since she's usually the one running the show. We chose a french theme because Paris is a special place to Bree and her Husband and also one of the reasons she gave her little girl a french name.

We chose to go with black, white and pink, using mainly damask and solid prints. A good friend of ours, Jenn of Decor 8 Events, let us use some chair covers with black satin sashes that I think totally made the room! The majority of our decorations were from Bree's home and borrowed from friends and family. The menu consisted of croissants, a meat and cheese platter, Crépes made by our very own Carla of Savour The Art Of Food, which were sided with fresh sliced strawberries, bananas, Nutella and whipped cream! YUM! We also had some delightful punch and cupcakes made by some close friends of ours who also deserve a shout out for all their help! Thanks Melanie & Marissa! And a special thanks to our fave photographer, Vanessa of VR photography who was our little shutterbug for the afternoon!

We decided to make it mainly a social event for people to come meet the sweet new baby and congratulate and spoil her wonderful momma! I think it turned out a great success! We had favors made from Ikea spice jars, Hershey kisses (we hit up the post valentine's day sales to get the pink caramel and cherry filled ones!), and yours truly on graphic design.

Now since I'm kinda a novice at throwing larger scaled events I decided to give you my top 5 advice tips to make a larger event go smoothly!

1. HELP!!! - Make sure you have adequate help, pre-event help, set-up help and take down help! I promise you your event will go much smoother if you can learn to delegate! This is no time to be superwoman! And I understand that it is so much fun to do all these things but pick the top 3 or 4 things you want to do and delegate the rest! You will be soo happy you did, and if you finish your jobs early, you can help out with those other things you wanted to do.
   
2. Prep, prep, PREP! - Do as much pre-event stuff as you can, this ensures that the day of is less stressful and that you will be able to handle those last minute kinks and trust me they come!
3. Plan! -I am such a list maker, I love having a visual idea of what I need... I sometimes even draw out the venue and where I think I should put where. This is especially useful when you're not able to set up until the day of! If you are especially nervous, try setting up some things in a similar space to see how your decorations flow... that way when it comes to D-Day you have a little more confidence and aren't too overwhelmed!
4. Consider! -Think about who you are planning this event for even if it's for yourself. I think the best advice anyone gave my husband for helping with our wedding day was to pick the one thing you want most and then say whatever to the rest! haha now I'm not saying you should only care about one thing, but it will stress you out if you try to make every aspect perfect! Focus on a few key items and try not to stress about the rest! It will be fabulous! I know it! For Bree's shower, I played the genie and asked her for her 3 wishes for the shower and then did my best to make them come true. That way I knew she was getting what she really wanted and I didn't feel so nervous about whether or not she'd like it!
5. ENJOY! -Remember why you're throwing this event... to HAVE FUN! Ultimately you want to have a good time and enjoy the people around you, so do that! If you need to hire someone else to make it go smoothly day of do it! DOnt' stress yourself out so much that you don't even enjoy the party! Make sure you get plenty of rest and go out there and socialize!