Best Friend's Bachelorette and Wedding Prep

I am preparing for on of my best friends' wedding in September and I am the maid of honor. This means that I am supposed to throw a shower and the bachelorette party. Well, she lives in Louisville, so I didn't throw her a shower- which I feel a little bad about- but she was one of my two maids of honor in my wedding and she didn't throw me a shower so I think it is ok. PLUS I did drive 5 hours to be at her shower two weeks ago and now I am going back again to throw the Bachelorette party.



The picture above is my file for her wedding. Since I am far away, I tried to be helpful with ideas and input and searching for websites and pictures. I am very excited to see how things turn out.

This weekend we are gathering at a friend's house in Louisville and the tables will be covered in pink tablecloths and little brown ribbon runners with pink polka dots will add a little pizazz. I am also planning to have wine glasses on the table with pink napkins sticking out for a little flair. plus pink and brown balloons. I bought silver trays for the heavy apps; we're having a mini food theme. I am making mini tacos, mini pizzas, mini burgers and mini pigs in a blanket. I might also do an artichoke dip and maybe some sort of cheese spread. After food and drinks at the house we are getting picked up in the limo and taken to 4th street which is a whole area of bars that is under a huge Vegas type roof. It is kind of cheesy, but always fun. The whole thing will be a little hard for me because I have been so tired lately and stressed about trying to find a house that I have been a little worried about running out of gas. I really want to be fun for my friend.

I will be excited to take pictures of how everything turns out. Everyone is suppose to wear pink and brown to match the color scheme and I bought cheepie pink leis for everyone to wear.

I also need to come up with a pink signature drink for the party- if anyone has any ideas- please let me know!

Friends Thanksgiving

This Sunday a friend and I hosted our first annual Friends Thanksgiving. It was beautiful! I was so proud of our efforts and think it is a really nice tradition to start. Since most people are going to have the traditional Thanksgiving meal again this week, we didn't want to do everything standard for fear that people would find it redundant. Since my friend had married into an Italian name and I have recently married out of mine, we decided to host an Italian-style Thanksgiving feast. We started with a pumpkin soup that I decided to make on a whim. Sunday morning it was a pumpkin and Sunday evening it was soup! It was a success and I felt very "Martha" We also made lemon garlic asparagus instead of green beans and roasted sweet and new potatoes with olive oil and fresh herbs for a fresh twist on the standard mashed version. We had two types of stuffed shells- my family recipe with meat, and a new artichoke and cheese version for the vegetarians. We also made a citrus, white wine, apple, butter and herb seasoned turkey and it was fantastic. My husband said that the white wine and apples really added something special to the gravy. The best part was the table decor-- we filled 3 low round vases of different sizes with cranberries and wide candles and in the center was a fishbowl shaped vase full of pine cones. My friend made lovely runners that criss-crossed the table and napkins to match. We ended the evening with pumpkin cookie sandwiches and apple pie and pumpkin ice cream. It was truly a night to remember and to see the smiles on our friends faces made us feel as if it was the start of something special.