A Candied Shower

I actually wasn't sure I was going to have a shower for the wedding. My amazing aunt threw me a family shower (complete with ornaments and undies for the gifts!) while I was home last Christmas, which was a lot of fun! I would have called it a day at that. But apparently my mom and BMs had other plans.

As you may have gathered from my bachelorette party in Victoria, BC, I like tea. A lot. And I like tea parties even more. So, of course, my lovely BMs and aunt decided to throw a beautiful tea-themed shower in my honor. They seriously rock. Have I mentioned how much I love my family and friends?

First, let's look at this cake that BM L made. She made it. For real. It is a tea pot. A tea pot cake. Yes, she is ridiculously talented.

And not only did it look ridiculously cool, it also tasted delicious. 

Don't worry - that's not spam on the cheese plate. It's just some sort of pretty, pink champagne cheese that they bought because it matched the pink cake.

Mmm, delicious beautiful cupcakes that, again, BM L made. She is a domestic goddess.

A close-up of the tea pot cake. So cute!

I love these tea cups. We have a ton of my grandma's old tea cups that they brought out for the occasion. Okay, I had actually brought them out before, so that I could use them as centerpieces for our cocktail-hour tables, but you get the idea.

Aren't they fun? I think my favorite was the lily of the valley tea cup.

Basically, we ate delicious food and cake, laughed and caught up, opened presents, and played a cute shower game.

A few of my favorite people in the entire world: 

BM M, Aunt S, BM L, Mom CA, MIL, CA, BM C, and Step-Mom CA 

(Oh yeah, and Mr. CA stopped by with flowers. We forgot to snap a pic, though! Oopsie.)

They threw the shower for me the Sunday before our wedding, which I was hesitant about at first. I didn't want to be a burden to people who were already helping so much with the wedding! However, it really ended up being such a great time to relax and catch up with my friends and family. It was a very quiet time, and I was so glad that I could talk with everyone outside of the crazy wedding environment. It made me a bit less stressed out and fortified me for the week to come! The champagne helped, too. As did the cake.

Did you have a shower that was close to the day of the wedding? Did it help you de-stress before all of the wedding chaos started? Was your shower a 'theme' shower, or was the theme simply 'yay you're getting married'?? 

Apples Gone Wild: Part II

If you missed the first post, my lovely BMs took me up to Victoria for a fun, low-key bachelorette party.

Me in front of our Elizabethan cottage. I swear I was not pregnant - that dress is just a bit froofy.

Our second day in Victoria revolved around something that I was really looking forward to - Afternoon Tea at The Empress! I'm a huge tea fanatic and love all things tea, so this was one of the main draws for Victoria as our destination. I had been to The Empress several times for tea as a child and was really looking forward to going back!

 So, we got all fancified and headed down to the lovely Victoria waterfront.

The ivy-coated facade of the Empress always gets me. Sigh. So old-fashioned and gorgeous!

I loved every minute of it. Having afternoon tea at a fancy (or even not so fancy) hotel is totally a fun experience, especially if you have your best gals with you. You choose which tea you would like, and they bring a pot of it out. If you decide you want another kind of tea, they'll bring another kind! The sandwiches were amazing, and super filling. I LOVED the scones, jam, and cream - could have eaten about 50 of those. We were pretty stuffed by the time we got to the desserts; those plates don't look like they have a lot on them, but we ate a lot of food! Plus, we drank a lot of tea.

They even brought me a little chocolate banner on their pretty china.

We all wore our tiaras, and the old women who were having high tea loved us - they thought we were just the cutest group ever. I think they were just surprised that we decided to have high tea for a bachelorette party.

I like to call my look in this picture my "Cinderella Step-Sister Look." Note the apparent bubble-butt and pregnancy-esque stomach? Yes. Clearly, this dress does not always look flattering on me. I swear it is cute in real life, though! Probably shouldn't sit down in it anymore, though - the petticoat lining underneath really poofs out. Hot.

After afternoon tea, we walked around the waterfront a bit to work off all that sugar. We actually saw a few weddings in progress that weekend, and I can see why. It is absolutely beautiful there! Sigh. I love Victoria. 

While we were walking around the waterfront, we noticed this ship:

Which meant that, although we did not have strippers at my bach, we did encounter some "men in uniform" of a different stripe. Apparently they are Russian sailors?

Yes. They were thoroughly excited to encounter a group of American girls in tiaras.

While we were sitting at the table eating dinner after the sailors left, a large bachelor party walked by. They were all very intoxicated, and when the groom turned around, it was clear that the groomsmen (or whoever) had cut out circles in the butt of his pants. So yes. He was essentially wearing ass-less pants. Apparently they were having people smack his bare butt with a wooden spoon? So it was a nice and rosy, splotchy red. Lovely. Just what I want to see when I'm eating dinner.

The group parked themselves right in front of our table and, lo and behold, as they were milling about with the groom's butt pressed against a nearby restaurant's window, another bachelorette party came from the opposite direction. I am still not quite sure what was going on, but there were two brides wearing some very, ahem, revealing outfits. And by that I mean that they were essentially wearing lingerie. In broad daylight. In the middle of quaint, downtown Victoria.

Now, I don't mean to get on my high horse, and it might just be that I am a very old/ lame/ boring/ prudish person, but the two groups made me uncomfortable. In fact, I was embarrassed to be seen near them for fear that people would think we were part of the group! Listen, I am all for going out, getting wild, drinking, and having fun with your friends at your bach. I don't even care if you're wearing penis paraphernalia! But the two other groups we encountered just seemed a bit much. Degrading, almost? Maybe it was the nudity? Maybe it was the spoon-spankage? Maybe it was the lingerie? Maybe it was the straddling?? (The girls in the bachelorette party were all over the guys, so I certainly hope they were "with" them - as in, the guys were their soon-to-be husbands. Because if not, what the heck were they doing?) To me, bachelorette and bachelor parties are a time to go out and have fun with your friends to celebrate your upcoming nuptials. Not to be all up on other guys.

Remember, folks: just because you're at your bachelorette party does not mean that you are single for a night! You are still in a relationship! Act like it.

Okay. I don't want to offend people and their varying ideas of bach parties, but this all just seemed a bit much to me. End tangent.

We spent some more time laughing at the other bach parties, then spent the rest of the evening at a bar, where some dude bought us free champagne. Thanks, buddy!

And, a last shot of me with our champagne. With my crunchy veil. And my bachelorette garter (around my arm). And my spinny pin (that we didn't end up using). Attractive.

All in all, I had such a blast at my bach! Spending time with my girls is the best, and the high tea was just the icing on the proverbial (tea) cake.

Did anyone else have any weird encounters during their bachelorette party? Any other appearances by Russian sailors?

Do you think that bachelorette/ bachelor parties give people a 'get out of jail free card' to go nuts? Or am I just a prude? How far do you think is too far in terms of appropriate/ inappropriate behavior?

Apples Gone Wild: Part I

I can honestly say that the past 2.5 months have been the busiest, most insane months of my life. Okay, okay, they might be trumped by the first few months of my life (getting pushed from a nice, cozy uterus out through a narrow dark passageway tends to be somewhat traumatic and chaotic), but seriously, it's been close.

However, now that we have moved down to VA (wahoo!!) and have been on our honeymoon (double wahoo!! more on that later!), things are finally settling down a bit in the CA household. Sort of. Anyway, I am now hoping to get back to blogging about some of the stuff leading up to our big day.

First up? My bachelorette party!

From the get-go, I knew that I only wanted my closest gals with me - the guest list was only myself, my MOH (sister), and my 3 BMs. Since I live on the East coast and the ladies are all on the West, it made planning a bit tricky. But my girls took the helm and, after some discussion, settled on a place near and dear to my heart for a lovely weekend getaway. Our destination? Victoria, B.C.!

First, let me say that there is something to be said about wild bachelorette parties on the town complete with crazy scavenger hunt checklists, strippers, and penis straws, but I personally am pretty uncomfortable with that type of thing. I am just not a huge fan of some random, sweaty man in a thong rubbing up on me. I don't like asking random strangers to write on my boob with sharpies. And why exactly would I want to wear any sort of penis paraphernalia? Not my cup of tea.

(And just to clarify, I absolutely don't care when other ladies have this type of bach! Seriously, I like living vicariously through them - they look super fun. It's just not what I wanted for mine.)

Since the ladies knew that I love all things tea, English gardens, and waterfront views, that I wanted a lower-key bach without strippers, and since it is pretty easy to get to from Seattle, Victoria seemed like the perfect place for a relaxing, classy bachelorette weekend away.

So, I flew out to Seattle for a long weekend because really, I just wanted to spend time with my best friends. Isn't that what a bach is for? I woke up bright and early to have my final dress fitting, and then met up with the gals to catch the Victoria Clipper. It's almost a 3 hour trip to Victoria from Seattle, and we whiled away the time gabbing, catching up, and laughing at the guy passed out next to us. 

We stayed at the English Inn, which is a little bit outside the main downtown area. Although that means it's a bit of a trek (read: about a 10 minute taxi ride) from downtown, it also means it is very quite, and has lots of room. The Inn is a darling property with rambling, beautiful gardens, open lawns, and quaint Shakespearean-esque buildings. Apparently they hold weddings there, too. We stayed in a little town-house with two bedrooms upstairs and a fold-out couch downstairs.

My sister is a bed hog and took up at least 7/8ths of the bed each night.

 The blondies - my lovely sister/ MOH, and cousin/ BM. They are super excited about their tiaras!

The brunettes, fixing their tiaras.They don't look as excited.

The whole gang! If you look closely, you will see Bernice, Bessie, Bride, Babs, and Bertha. These are not our real names. The name tags came with the fun bridal gear that MOH brought along, and we thought it would be fun to go incognito. Us with our fake names - we're so wild! Watch out!

I love this picture because a) my cousin is gorgeous and sweet and I love her, and b) there was a bride and groom directly behind us out on the lawn getting their pictures taken. I wanted to show off my veil to them, but I restrained myself. Instead, we probably just got in the background of some of their pictures. Oops.

I had to do it - a close-up of my crunchy veil. This thing was hideous and awesome. They forced me to wear it all weekend.

After we were all settled in, we grabbed a few more pictures of the property and headed out for the night! We had a delicious dinner downtown at Nautical Nellie's (we only eat fish with large flakes, of course), and then hit some fun bars with awesome live music.

Just my kind of night - halibut, beer and my ladies. Oh, and a crunchy veil. And yes, I am a terrible blogger and took pictures of neither the meal nor the beer. My bad.

But stay tuned: there's more coming up!

What sort of bachelorette party did you have: wild or tame? Did your gals get you any penis paraphernalia or other bridal garb like my tiara and veil (and garter. and necklace. and badge)? Anyone else go to Victoria for their bach?