I knew my younger sister Bonnie and my (now) brother in law Eric were talking about marriage long before he officially popped the question to her. As the months went by waiting for things to become official and a date to be set, I started thinking about throwing her bridal shower. I knew that was a job for the "Maid of Honor" but I decided I would be taking that duty off of her hands, whoever she was! I didn't know at the time that the honor would end up being mine.
I had a vision of a fancy tea party with vintage mismatched china, scones and the women wearing party hats! The party I first envisioned was NOT the same party that my sister got. Small sacrifices had to be made along the way. I realized things were far more expensive than I had ever imagined. Read on to find out how we pulled it all off.
Where I found mismatched China
My sister had a large guest list so the shower had to be held in a hall. I couldn't have hired a tea room to do all the work. Not only was it over my budget but the rooms were very small and only held about 25 people. One of the bridesmaids chipped in and I was able to rent a really nice hall in the city that we grew up in. After I had secured a location, I looked into renting beautiful china but that was pricey and I was afraid it would get broken. I found the cheapest option was to actually collect the china myself. At first I scoured yard sales, Craigslist, eBay and Etsy. Everything online was way too much money. I joined freecycle but that didn't pan out. So I figured yard sales would be my best bet.
Out of the many many sales, I can remember 3 yard sales with reasonably priced china. I also found several tea cups at a church flea market in Nahant. My sister Nikki found some very pretty teacup and saucer sets at a flea market, my mother found some pieces for me, I borrowed a bunch, used my own set of second hand china and my mother in law and her sister donated a bunch of teacups to me. The bulk of my china came from Savers and Salvation Army stores. At Savers I found cloth napkins, table cloths, china and tea pots. These stores know what they doing and if something was a big brand the price would reflect that. I splurged on a few prettier pieces because I figured I would keep them for myself after the shower. Most of the china was not high end name brands. Most of it was cheaper stuff and I found a lot of vintage dishes that probably aren't china but they were really pretty!
So right off the bat, I was a little discouraged. The dishes I was collecting weren't like the gorgeous dishes you could rent online. I had no idea how expensive china was because I had never purchased any! I checked out the prices for brand new stuff and I was shocked.
So I settled for whatever I could find. I had a few rules.
1) It all had to be cleanable and chip free. crazing was ok.
2) All the prints had to be floral (there were a few exceptions)
3) no brown or orange 70s looking stuff
4) I was to try and stick to paying under $2 per plate or cup
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| Savers |
I found a lot of incomplete sets for very cheap at Savers. They would group all of the same pattern together in a basket and I got some for as little as 33 cents each dish. Usually though I got a few pieces here and there. Savers supposedly puts out new items every day. I was never able to get there first thing in the morning when they opened but I think that would be the best time to go.
Savers was hit or miss too. You need to go often and to different Savers stores. Lucky for me, Massachusetts has several. Saugus seemed to be a little more expensive for china than Danvers was. We also visited about 4 Savers stores on the south shore. I believe it was the Framingham store that we got the best stuff in one trip.We got like a whole cart full!
My mother and I went to the Lynn Salvation Army and I found a couple cheap saucers but nothing special. It was such a small store so I never went back. The Saugus store on Route 1 had a ton of stuff. On my first visit, I got a bunch. The prices were very reasonable but I realized after we left that the girl at the register rang everything up wrong. I was annoyed but it was all still cheap so I figured whatever. When I went back the china was all marked up for much more money. I had to be choosier because they were often more money than Savers charged. Then I discovered the warehouse in back of the retail store. I would say the average price I paid in the warehouse was 50 cents- $1. Sometimes I got things cheaper because the person at the register didn't want to ring it up separately so they gave me a deal. I also got vases here for cheap too. I never had time to visit any other Salvation Army stores. I found with the one in Saugus, it was best to go every few weeks.
Teapots,Tea and Food
At first I planned on having cute little tea pots on every table so each person could pour their own tea. Then I started thinking... How and where would the guests get the water for the pots? After much research, I realized that the pots were too expensive to purchase brand new and with that many people it didn't really make sense. I thought of having "waiters" serve tea but that didn't seem like it was going to work. Finally, I decided what we had to do was a tea buffet. I purchased a huge water percolator and set up a table with the hot water and a selection of extra cups and all kinds of different flavors of tea. Little bags for guests to take tea home were provided. If you decide to do this for a party, do not just wash out a coffee percolator. Your tea will taste funny if coffee has ever been made in it.
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| Hot water and coffee station |
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| Tea bag buffet with extra cups |
It didn't feel right to not have tea pots at all so I collected those with the help of my mother. They cost between $3 and $8 a piece at Savers and at yard sales. My Aunt Lisa helped me with arranging flowers inside the teapots. We used the tea pots for the table centerpieces. My Aunt got me some of the supplies and flowers and my mother and I went shopping for the rest at grocery stores a couple days before the shower.
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| Grocery store flower bouquets |
I really wanted each table to have tiered servers with little sandwiches and scones but it wasn't meant to be. Those tiered china plates cost at least $40 and I would have needed one for each table. I wanted to have cute little tea party sandwiches but there was no way there would be any time to make them. Instead what we did was put on each table an assortment of mini muffins, breads and scones cut into pieces. Some of the scones I bought and some my mother made.
I ordered finger sandwich platters from Market Basket and got a lot of bulk hors d'oeuvre foods at BJ's. They had Spanikopita, baklava, and other finger foods. I made a few things, my parents made some food and my future sister in law made to die for carrot cake cupcakes. I bought cute little pastries from whole foods. We put all the small desserts on tiered trays that my father made with wood and I painted pink and covered them with doilies. I borrowed trays, cupcake holders and whatever else I could get from family and friends.
I agonized over the cake. I wanted it to be perfect! I don't think anyone would have thought less of me if I had just gotten a sheet cake but I wanted the cake to be extra special. My Aunt Alice offered to pay for it so that was awesome. The cake was 3 different flavors, had 3 tiers and on top sat one of my grandmothers vintage tea cups. They decorated the cake to match the cup! I loved it! It was really special to me because my grandmother passed away before my sisters engagement and this was a way to include her. My grandmother would always ask me "Do you think they will get married"?
Tablecloths and Invitations
One of the things I really wanted was to have real linen table cloths. After researching cost to buy or rent I realized that it was another thing I couldn't afford to do. I decided to skip the fancy tablecloths and napkins. My mother made large table toppers for the center of the tables. We decided that we would get plastic lined paper tablecloths and use the fabric over the paper. There wasn't anything to pick from in the fabric store! I wanted floral tea party-ish prints and Joanne fabrics didn't have much!! I got a few prints there and then luckily found pretty fabric on fabric.com
The table toppers came out great but then I couldn't find round paper tablecloths anywhere! I had to settle for plastic.Not a big deal but just another thing that didn't go as planned. I bought the plastic table cloths at Party City. I believe there is a big difference in quality over the dollar store so it was worth a few extra dollars.
I was against making the invitations. I wanted to order them but my mom and my husband thought the DIY ones were very cute and would save a lot of money. They were right. I found the pattern online and I luckily found scrap book paper on clearance at Walmart. I only spent $3-5 on scrap paper books that are usually like $20. Instructions I used found here.
Hats and Fascinators
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| My girls |
I wanted this to be an extra special party that people would remember. I knew not many people had a tea party hat or a fascinator to wear so I decided one would be provided for them. Then they could take it home so it would be a party favor. Only problem with wanting to do this was the cost. Who knew Sun hats cost $25-$38? I sure didn't. I scoured the internet for fascinators and they were expensive too. The solution was to DIY all the fascinators and hats.
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| hats and fascinators hanging in our sun porch |
I looked for hats on clearance after the summer. Kohls regular price was $38 on their hats and I got them for under $4 each. I just happened to be shopping at Lane Bryant and found that they had a bin of sun hats on clearance for $5 each so I bought them all. I went online and bought feathers, rhinestones and tulle. I shopped at Christmas time at Michael's when they had 60% off sales and I got stuff after the holidays on clearance. My aunt gave me a whole box of silk flowers. I looked for supplies wherever I went while I was also collecting china and all the other stuff I collected.We went crazy with the glue gun!
My parents dining room table was turned into a fascinator workshop. Day after day my mother and I created works of art. I got my daughters to help too. Some were really pretty and others were hysterical. We had fun with it.
How I made fascinators
I didn't plan on making a blog post so I never took any step by step photos. Basically what I did was make a base out of felt. Some were rectangle shapes and some were circles. I glued pipe cleaners around the edges of the felt to give it some stability. Then I would flip my shape over and decorate it with hot glue, fake flowers, tulle, feathers etc. when I was done decorating I attached the pipe cleaner side to an alligator clip or a hair comb. Some I glued onto headbands.
Party Favors
Each guest could choose either a hat or a fascinator when they arrived at the shower. I had the hats laid out on a table and hat boxes filled with fascinators. We also had many flavors of tea and take home bags. I made favors that were conversation hearts (party was in Feb) wrapped in tulle and inside little silver baskets but not many people took those home. I also gave away the tea pot flower centerpieces.
Photo Booth
I thought since we would all be dressed up and wearing ridiculous hats anyway, there should be photos! My cousin Jen had a photo booth at her sisters bridal shower and she was nice enough to let me borrow the frame! She even set it up for me that day!! The back drop we used was long curtain swags purchased by my mom at a yard sale. My husband was the photographer. I collected props and had extra headpieces for everyone. Here are some photos of the kids modeling.
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| My son was a huge help! |
Preparation, Clean Up and Help
One of the worst tasks before the shower was washing the dishes that I had collected. A little trick I learned was to put vinegar into a spray bottle and spray onto price stickers and it let it soak in. After a while the sticker will wipe right off. Savers uses these weird markers. The writing came off but to make my life easier I scrubbed all the dishes with Mr. Clean erasers. Then I rewashed them again with soap. I wanted to make sure they were extra clean. When I realized hand washing was taking too long I started to use my mothers huge dishwasher.
I organized the dishes into boxes by table. I made sure not to repeat any patterns per box. So into each box went 8 mismatched plates, 8 saucers, 8 teacups, plastic utensils wrapped up with mismatched cloth napkins, a sugar dish, a creamer, ...and then finally the tablecloth and topper went on top before the box was shut. When someone started to unpack it they could put the tablecloths on first and then set the table.
Have you wondered yet how I transported table settings for 80 people, plus centerpieces, hats, fascinators and all the other things needed to the function hall? That thought didn't occur to me until a couple months before the shower. The only answer was to rent a moving truck. To sell this idea to my husband I suggested that the couch that we were buying be picked up that night (using the truck) after the shower. Luckily he went for it!
Day of the party
We only had 2 hours to set up at the hall and I got there 30 minutes late in the truck. We had a lot of help and we all ran around getting ready. Bridesmaids showed up early and helped unload the moving truck, one brother helped in the kitchen, another drove my kids to the hall. I don't even remember who picked up the food! My sons girlfriend, my cousin was there, my parents, sisters...I could go on and on. I had a huge crew of people to help the day of. Even the first few guests offered to help and I gladly accepted!
The clean up was basically shoving stuff in boxes and loading the truck. We had a lot of help with that too and several guests helped us which was great. We also had to load up all my sisters gifts into cars to take home.
Throwing this party was a ton of work. You need to know what you want and actually like to do this sort of thing. I collected dishes for over a year and a half. I spent months on projects. You will need a lot of help with these projects and also the day of. I even had my daughters boyfriend helping us make fascinators :) I could not have managed this if not for all the help I had. I can't stress this enough.
Aftermath
I'm not going to lie, washing all the dirty dishes afterwards sucked!. I let them sit for quite some time in the boxes while we picked away at washing them. It was just such a huge project and our dish washer sucks. Luckily they weren't that dirty.. Just crumbs or at worst some frosting on them. Over a year later I had boxes of china around the house and cabinets full of it. I returned the stuff I borrowed and slowly went through it all. I kept the set my Aunt gave me (that I already had before the shower planning) and I am keeping my favorite pieces. I sold the rest.
Looking back my only regret is that I didn't have a photographer. That is usually my job and I assumed other people would take pictures. They didn't. Luckily, one of my sisters bridesmaids went around to each table for me and took photos of everyone and some of my sister opening her gifts. I just regret not having more photos of all the details that we worked so hard on!
A huge thank you to my mother, father and my husband who helped me so much in the months getting ready for this party. My parents allowed me to use their house for all my projects and for a while I kind of took over. There was no room to work at my house because it was filled with dishes! My husband accompanied me on endless trips to yard sales and Savers stores and stopped me when I attempted to buy a plain piece of china out of desperation!
I hope reading about my sisters party helped you if you are thinking of throwing a tea party. Let me know if there is anything I forgot to cover or if you have any questions!
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