Whitney's Bridal Weekend

Steph, Kat, Me, Whit, Michelle, Laura, Emily

One of my oldest childhood friends is getting married in October, and this weekend was her "bridal weekend" (bridal shower, bachelorette party, and lots of girl time). She's getting married in Boston, but currently living and working in California, so she flew in for the weekend. One of the other bridesmaids is still in the Boston area, so she and I were here already, and the other bridesmaids traveled in from Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York City.

We held the shower at Steph's parents' house in Carlisle and it was travel-themed, since Whitney loves to travel and has been traveling the world from a young age. The food we served was:

Peppers and Cucumbers with Spinach and Artichoke Hummus

Cheese, Crackers and Grapes

Fruit Salad (Grapes, Blueberries, Strawberries and Kiwi)

Chicken Pasta Primavera with Basil Cream Sauce

Vanilla Cupcakes with Crunchy Vanilla Frosting

These cupcakes came from a box (shh, don't tell!) but were made healthier by swapping out half of the oil for applesauce (we did the same for the brownies, too). When I make them at home for myself I usually swap out all of the oil for applesauce and use only egg whites instead of full eggs, but since this was for a party I included some oil so the cupcakes wouldn't stick to the wrappers. To make the crunchy frosting, I used whipped frosting (also store bought...we were short on time) and stirred in lots of Sugar In The Raw (the granules are bigger than regular sugar so the crunch is better). Everyone said they loved these!

Double Chocolate Ghirardelli Brownies Dusted with Powdered Sugar

Black and White Cookies (bakery bought - there wasn't time to be that ambitious!)



Food Not Pictured:

• Greek Salad
• Bread with Parmesan Herb Dipping Oil

Beer Bucket with beers from some of Whit's favorite places:                                                             

• Yuengling from Pennsylvania (the oldest brewery in America!)
• Sam Adams Summer from Boston
• Guinness and Harp from Ireland

We also made Arnold Palmer's, which is half sweet tea vodka and half lemonade. We used Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka and Newman's Own Lemonade (the best!). Two of the weddings I went to this summer had these as the signature drink, so we thought it'd be perfect to have these as Whit's Bridal Shower signature drink. They were a huge hit, and we ended up going through six pitchers! To make them I usually start with a 50/50 ratio, then taste to see if you need to adjust. We added a little extra lemonade to these, since we didn't want Whitney's mother's friends to be too sauced to drive themselves home from the shower. Add lemon wedges to make them look pretty!

Here are some pictures of the decorations. We framed many pictures of Whitney traveling with friends and family throughout her life, hung postcards of lots of her favorite places, and made centerpieces with more pictures of her.

The shower was such a success that no one wanted to leave! Finally at 5pm I had to make an announcement that the girls had dinner reservations and a bachelorette party to attend to...

The bachelorette night didn't happen because the guest of honor ended up getting sick...so that is postponed to another time! The next day we all packed up from Boston and headed back to Carlisle to Kathryn's father's house. Its so much fun to have everyone home and hang at our parents houses like we're still in high school!

We made some mimosas to have while we watched movies. We used tangerine juice instead of orange juice -so good!

That evening Kat's father and her step-mother made a perfect summer meal for us! Fresh corn on the cob from a local farm, tomatoes with basil, oil and feta cheese, roasted vegetables that were marinated in Italian dressing, and perfectly grilled steaks!

This is Maddie, the lady of the house!