Wedding Couples BBQ Shower

It was a success!
The house and yard looked great, the food was tasty, and everyone had a nice time!
And as our first real "hosted" party, I think we did a great job, and walked away with some good lessons too!

First, the menu! 
We catered the chopped pork and chicken, as well as the cole slaw and potato salad from Bub-Ba-Q.  They have great barbecue, and are nice and local!  We had little Hawaiian rolls available, sauce, bread and butter pickles, and mayo to make bbq sliders.  We also had veggie crudites, fresh fruit salad, pigs-n-blankets (had to keep with the theme), deviled eggs, and a few other little things.  To drink, we had tea, lemonade, and small bottles of water.  Oh, and we had a cake (by Publix) and some cookies! 
We had plenty of food, and everything was exceptionally yummy!

Second, some pictures!

Striped paper straws!  http://www.thesugardiva.com/  :)

Some of the grub.

Hand-wrapped and tied napkins and utensils!

Laura  :)

Gift mountain!

The cake!  They were able to copy and print the top half of the invitation onto edible rice paper.  Loved it!  And then they used coordinating colors to make flowers and border piping,.  #impressed

We told them that this was the "practice cake for the wedding".

This was the after-effects of the second bite.  They are sooo cute!!

Sweet picture!



Sisters and cousins!



Sunflowers and Astrolomeria

Okay, so what did I take away from it...?
1. You can plan all you want, but it's the execution that'll put you to the test!  We learned that we need to focus on time management next time.  It'll be a good idea to make a detailed timeline and stick to it.  Saying that I need to consider finding the trays for everything before the party begins, should really equate to finding all of the platters the day before.  That way, I don't have to worry about scrounging around and not getting everything out in time.  I did this with the vases for the flowers though, so that was good.  #priorities...
2.  Figure out what being a good host means.  I didn't really know what I was doing and found myself asking, "Okay, so what's next" a few times.  Luckily, there were plenty of people around me that did know what was going on, and could gently lead me along.  :)
3.  The details are very important!  One of my favorite things were these little striped paper straws that I insisted on having.  I loved them, and got great feedback.  Gary also took the time to wrap and tie with twine (I'm training him well!) all of the utensils in a napkin so that people could just grab and go.  It was a nice touch!
4.  Don't be afraid to ask for help.
5.  Above all, have fun!  It was great.  We weren't nervous, we were quirky and funny, and we had everyone happy and smiling!  Everyone had such a great time, and it was sooo great to see all of the family and friends!

After the party, we put all of the perishables away, rented "Beastly", ordered pizza, and chilled.  The movie was good!  The pizza was just right, and the cats were happy to finally be able to roam around after being cooped-up all day.  I suppose we will have to finish cleaning up tomorrow, and we'll need to do some dishes.  But it felt so good to have had a successful event!
And now that it's all done, we can focus on the next one!
Thanks for all of the well wishes and happy thoughts!
Love and Bisous!