I had the privilege of hosting my good friend’s baby shower this summer—luckily this was not my first time hosting.
I have also helped host or hosted a few other parties over my years and I have figured out how to do it without going crazy. Here is how we threw, in my opinion (I will just assume your opinion too after you look at these amazing photos by Pat De Souza), a beautiful and fun “Poppy Themed Baby Shower.” What to think about is: theme, decorating, food, drink, and like us a photo booth!
After looking at a few other baby showers we realized what really makes them a success (some baby showers are boring…) is awesome pictures so we decided a photo booth was necessary. We had a photographer who is also a great friend to the mom and dad to be who stayed and photographed the event. The photos were incredible (See below)! It was so fun to just relax knowing photos were being taken and that we didn’t have to worry about having our phones out or cameras we could just enjoy each others company! Also side note but my friend was having a baby boy (was because baby Henson has since been born) and did not want anything light blue, so this helped with the theme and color planning.
The menu was planned as finger food because the party started at 1pm so people will be hungry but not starving. For drinks we were going to serve mimosas; three different juices and sparkling wine and rose sparkling wine. Things were kept simple- key to a successful party. If you try to go too over the top, nobody will notice, you will do/make too much and it will ruin the party for you.
We made the poppy flowers with tissue paper and hot glue gunned them together and then taped them to the back drop for the “photo booth”. There are a lot of tutorials you can follow online but we just played around with them and didn’t follow along because they were actually pretty easy to make and fun!
The menu was a variety so everyone could find something they liked: banh mi meatballs, cucumber and butter tea sandwiches, chili lime shrimp cups, crostini three different ways, and chilled pea and avocado soup with a Parmesan crisp. For dessert I made a pistachio cake with a mascarpone frosting, mini fruit tarts and sugar cookies. The only thing not homemade, and I really was against, were the mini macaroons from Trader Joe’s. Now after cooking/baking everything I highly suggest these! Easy and so yummy and it definitely would have put me over the edge to make macarons.
The week leading up to the party I planned daily what I would do to make things easy. I say start three days out: day three shop, day two bake cake and prepare, day one prep everything that can be prepped a day ahead, and on the day of just frost your cake and plate! I made the cake on Thursday night and froze it and then made almost all the food ahead on Friday and dropped everything off at the party house. The morning of I frosted the cake and then cooked the meatballs and then was able to just plate everything else. This made the morning stress free and also cooler with not a lot of baking!
My co-host was on flower duty and we did very minimal decorations because the food and cake also became decorations. Final item was games. We didn’t want to be cheesy but wanted to focus on the mom to be so we did “Guess the mom to be’s waist size” and “leave a note on a diaper for late night changes.”
We drank, ate, and took way too many photos! Follow my lead and you will have a fabulous party!
I don’t want to read your post, what should I know?
- A Poppy Themed baby shower is perfect for any gender
- Have an area where you can take photos at a baby shower, makes it more fun!
- Hire Pat from Frame Light Photography
- Don’t over do the mend! Four-ish items total for an afternoon party- there is also dessert!
- Make a center piece dessert item like and cake and a few other nibble desserts
- Make lists and plan ahead- start three days in advance
Want to copy my menu?! Go for it!
- Banh Mi meatballs
- Tea sandwiches- I just did white bread with room temperature (must be room temp or you will smush your bread!) butter and cumbers
- Crostini three ways – baguette toasted for 350 for about 10 minutes topped with 1) Whipped Ricotta and strawberries and basil topped with balsamic 2) Whipped Ricotta with peaches 3) Whipped Feta with watermelon
- Chilled avocado and pea soup with a Parmesan crisp
- Chili limp shrimp cups
- Pistachio cake with mascarpone frosting
- Mini fruit tarts
- Sugar cookies
- Trader Joe’s Mini Macarons
All Photos featured below are by Pat de Souza from Frame Light Photography
