Lifestyle

As maid of honor for my sister’s wedding, I organized her bridal shower. My sister is the opposite of me – doesn’t like anything too flashy or crazy. She wanted a very low-key, relaxing, and sweet bridal shower. No silly games with toilet paper dresses or ridiculous sexual presents. With the help of my mom, we settled on a tea-party theme keeping in line with the simple, rustic decor of her wedding. Read on below to learn how we planned everything!

Food and Drinks

The bridal shower started at 2 p.m., so it did not fall under any particular meal time. Since we went with the tea party theme, we decided on tea sandwiches, fresh fruit, cake, champagne, wine, tea, and coffee. It was all substantial enough that guests could enjoy a filling meal, but also elegant and light enough to fit the casual atmosphere perfectly.

If you are planning a low-key bridal shower, I would suggest small plates and light nibbles like we had. Scheduling a full-blown dinner or meal will make it feel much more structured and formal. Including a light alcoholic option adds a little spice to the afternoon without giving guests an excuse to get sloppy drunk or out-of-control.

Games and Activities

As I mentioned before, my sister was not thrilled about the typical, cheesy bridal shower games. Since we had my grandma and a few other women who may take offense to the more raunchy games, we decided to eliminate any of those activities. Instead, we planned two games and two activities.

The first game we planned was “Forbidden Words.” A very common game for bridal showers, this game always creates lots of laughs and brings out the competitive side of guests. We gave everyone an over-sized plastic diamond ring and prohibited the use of the words “Ron” (my sister’s fiance), “Wedding,” and “Love.” If you got caught saying one of those words, you had to hand our ring over to the person that heard you. The person with the most rings at the end of the shower wins a prize. For our winners, we gave them cute light pink Essie nail polish.

The second game we planned was “Guess Their Age.” We printed out photos of my sister and her fiance from their younger years and hung them on a big frame. Guests had to guess how old they were in each photo. The person who guessed the most correct wins a nail polish as well.

The activities we planned were very casual ones guests could do at any time. We ordered beautiful advice cards from Etsy (the same store we ordered the invites through) so that guests could impart some wisdom to my sister. We also placed some popsicle sticks in a mason jar and provided sharpies so that everyone could share a date idea. Both of these were very casual but will be nice mementos for my sister.

Decorations

Sticking to the simple, rustic theme of my sister’s wedding, we used burlap and lace for the main table. My sister’s wedding flowers are blue and white hydrangeas, so we used those as the flower centerpieces as well as baby’s breath and some simple greens. To tie in the blue, we had blue accents in the banner from Etsy and napkins from Molbaks. Everything was very simple, inexpensive, yet elegant.

We also used a few chalk boards – one out front and one for the advice cards. Chalk boards are fairly inexpensive and very trendy right now – they add a fun, customizable aspect to the event.

Finally, I scoured the sales racks at Value Village and World Market for inexpensive gold frames and found some great ones for very cheap. Framing little signs like we did adds a polished touch to the displays rather than leaving pieces of paper hanging awkwardly with instructions.

Favors

If you are short on funds or time, don’t worry about producing a party favor for your guests. Nowadays, favors typically get thrown in the trash or forgotten about. This is definitely an expense you can spare.

However, my mom and I wanted to have a little something since it was such a small shower. We knew we wanted to give something practical that our guests could actually use. My little sister came up with the idea of putting washi tape on tea lights and packaging them up super cute. Not only was this incredibly inexpensive, they turned out beautiful and everybody loved them.

I hope this guide to planning a low-key bridal shower was helpful for you. If you have any questions at all or want to share some advice of your own, please comment below! As always, thanks for reading!

For those of you who don’t know, the past two months have been absolutely insane for me. I organized my sorority’s annual Mom’s Weekend brunch and auction, got a new job, and wrapped up the semester. That’s right – I am officially a senior! I am so sorry for being completely M.I.A., but hopefully I can make up for that this summer when I have more free time to blog.

I learned so much from my experience planning the brunch and auction for my sorority. I had never been to the event before, so I had no idea what it was even supposed to be like. On a very tight budget, I had to be very frugal and creative. One of the most stressful experiences of my life, it was also one of the most rewarding – we raised over $6,000! Anyways, I wanted to share the eight most valuable lessons I learned from this process with y’all in case you have an event coming up soon.

1. You can’t please everybody

There will always be somebody with something negative to say. No matter how much audience research you have conducted and how much time you have put in to accommodating everybody’s needs, there will always be somebody. It’s a sad fact, but it’s the way it goes with most things in life. Everything could be going 100% smoothly but somebody will find that one napkin out of place.

People will always find something to complain about unfortunately. It most likely will be something completely out of your control – maybe a vendor was rude to them or more expensive than then had hoped.

When this happens, you have to just smile, apologize, and help them the best you can. When you are in the swing of the event, there is usually not much you can do for them, so you just need to be kind and gracious.

2. There will always be surprises

No matter how much meticulous planning you invest, something unexpected will always happen. For example, I planned a Mom’s Weekend brunch for my sorority and requested RSVP’s to plan how much food to make. Only 200 RSVP’ed, yet over 300 people showed up on the actual day. There was no possible way I could have planned for this.

When these surprises threaten to throw a wrench in your plans, just remember that they are ultimately out of your control. All you can do is adapt – be flexible as much as possible.

3. Have a plan for more AND less people than expected

Leading off of my last point, you should always have a plan for what will happen if more or less people than expected attend the event. For example, have extra chairs or a standing room only section designated to accommodate more people. If significantly less people show up than anticipated, have a plan for the left-over food/materials/space/etc.

4. Plan for any weather

If your event is outside (especially here in the Pacific Northwest), definitely have a back-up plan for rain. Whether it is an indoor venue or tents, you need to prepare for the unexpected. Weather is a silly thing that is nearly impossible to accurately predict and has the potential to destroy an event.

5. Be flexible

I really cannot stress this point enough. With all of the points I noted above, the common trend in all of them is the necessity of flexibility. You can invest hundreds of hours planning an event, but the actual event can only happen once. Just like the weather – there is nothing you can do to predict exactly how the event will flow. You need to prepare yourself to quickly adapt to change.

You may have planned a particular aspect of the event that ends up simply not working. You will need to quickly let go of your disappointment and make a change to remedy it. It’s really difficult, trust me, but necessary.

6. Delegate, delegate, delegate

You may be superwoman, but you cannot plan an event all on your own.  You need to have a trustworthy and hard-working team supporting you. Having an extra set of eyes on a floor plan or invitation can make a world of a difference. Having extra hands to help you move tables and place decorations will save you from a lot of the set-up and take-down labor.

Personally, I am a control freak. I find it extremely difficult to trust anybody to do anything – to make sure it’s perfect, I’d rather just take some more time and do it myself. Unfortunately, the world does not always work that way. With event planning, you really have to relinquish some control and trust your team to do things. You cannot be everywhere at once as much as you may want to be.

7. Be gracious

When something goes wrong or some grouchy guest has a complaint, your response is crucial. You can either get offended, upset, panicked, and defensive, or you can smile and tackle the issue head-on. You cannot take things personally. Say “sorry” even if you’re not to blame. If you are rude to a guest, it will ruin the entire event for them. You must be gracious to everybody, despite your frustration or stress.

8. BREATHE

As far as most people know, your event is going perfectly. An issue that may seem very big to you could go completely unnoticed by attendees. If you behave calm, cool, collected, and confident (even if it’s all a lie), people will believe that you have everything under control.

At the end of the day, a broken plate or a long line or a longer-than-planned speech will not ruin your event. Trust in yourself in the hard work you put into planning this event. You did everything you possibly could to make it perfect. If things go wrong, that is just the way it goes. Be proud of your incredible creation!

This week I took a much-needed vacation in Seattle. Since I’m originally from the Seattle area, it was more of a “stay-cation” but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t relaxing. My boyfriend Charlie and I stayed in the downtown Courtyard Marriott on South Lake Union which was incredibly nice and close to delicious restaurants and bars. The hotel is located on South Lake Union, so it was lovely to see the gorgeous water and boats around that area.

On Tuesday night, we went to the best barbecue place I have ever had located right by our hotel. The place is called Cask and Trotter. We both ordered barbecue pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, fries, and coleslaw. It was absolutely delicious!

On Wednesday, we spent the day wandering around Pike Place Market and the waterfront by the aquarium and Great Wheel. We had lunch at Lowell’s in the market which has the best sandwiches and fish and chips. It’s always a treat to play tourist in your own backyard – you fall in love with your home all over again.

Later that night, we had an outstanding dinner at El Gaucho – one of the fanciest places I’ve ever eaten at and the absolute best service you could possibly imagine.

It was a really amazing few days with the love of my life and I am sad it is over. I’m glad we have such an amazing city right in our backyard to spend a fun “stay-cation” in. I have definitely missed the city and the water! I look forward to spending the summer back in the area and exploring more.

Have you visited Seattle recently? What are some of your favorite spots?

Happy International Women’s Day everybody! This day is all about raising awareness for equal rights for women across the globe. It is absurd that many women lack basic fundamental rights still today.  All across the world, societies deny women the right to education, to vote, and even to their own bodies.

The fight for equality still persists even in the United States. Women face discrimination in their personal and professional lives every day. It is hard for me to articulate the importance of this cause, so I hope that the images and videos below help inspire and empower all those who see them.

I hope this sparks conversation and thought in everyone who reads this post – this issue affects all of us.

For the longest time, I have struggled with my health. From chronic pain to daily migraines to asthma – I can’t seem to get a break sometimes. One of my main health issues is called Reflex Neurovascular Dystrophy (also known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome). It causes extreme widespread chronic pain throughout the body – for me it is manifested mainly in my legs and hands. The only treatment (because there is no cure) is physical therapy. Staying active is my key to remaining as pain-free as possible.

My mom ran marathons like crazy before her cancer and other medical problems became too much for her to remain at that level. I know she misses running so much, so I would love to share that passion with her and make her proud by taking advantage of how healthy I am now. The picture below is just a small section of her vast running book collection. I also want to conquer my stupid health problems by completing a massive physical goal. Since I struggle with staying active and managing my pain, I wanted to set a concrete goal I could work towards in the new year.

I’ve always said I would run a marathon someday and I’m determined to do that. Now, don’t worry, I’m not being foolish and saying I’m going to just get up and run a marathon this year. I know people train for years for them and I should set a realistic goal. What I want to do is run a marathon the summer of 2016, so my resolution this year is to run a 10k!

I will be running that Fred Hutch Shore Run on June 7th, 2015. I chose this run for many reasons, but mostly because it benefits cancer research – something very near and dear to my heart.

It’s not going to be easy going from where I am at now physically to where I want to be for the 10k. But what worth having has ever come easy? I have 5 months to get in shape. I can’t wait to start this journey! I hope you enjoy following along with my “5 Months to 10k” series!

Have you ever run a 10k or marathon? I’d love to hear your experience! 

If you’e like me, you struggle to get your daily dose of fruits and vegetables. I developed a delicious smoothie recipe to make daily to get you 1. 5 cups of fruit, 2 cups of spinach, and a whole lot of protein. According to Chose My Plate (a government nutrition site), women ages 19-50 are supposed to get 2.5 cups of vegetables and about 2 cups of fruit. How awesome is it that with ones simple smoothie, you can almost meet those requirements? It’s a delicious blend of sweet and tart that will leave you satisfied and full. I promise you won’t taste the spinach at all!

Ingredients:

1 tbsp. almond butter

1 tbsp. chia seeds

1-1.5 cups almond milk

2 cups frozen mixed berries (I used raspberries and blueberries for this recipe)

1 banana

2 cups spinach

Directions:

Add ingredients and blend until liquid. Add frozen berries to thicken or almond milk to thin. Pour in a glass and enjoy!