Part 1: Vino's Bridal Shower

We packed A LOT of stuff into this past weekend, so I'll break it up into two parts - the shower and the bachelorette party.

Friday morning I was up super early to squeeze in a walk and straighten up the house, before jumping in the car and heading down to SD. By 12:30 or so I was finally there, dropped off my car at Blondie's parent's house, jumped in her car and we were off to grab lunch before heading to the hostess' house to start setting up.

Set-up went surprisingly well. Vino's sister and mom, Dressing Queen and Crafty, were there to help and by 4:30, the seating area was done and we had a good game plan for the last minute stuff we needed to do the next day.

At that point, Blondie and I went to run last minute errands with her sister Sporty and then met back up with the whole gang at Crafty's house that night.

In the meantime, we learned that Vino seems to have a bit of "wedding brain." When she went to check in for her flight that afternoon, they told her that she had booked the flight from SD to LV, not the other way around. Um, oops! Thankfully, they were able to get her on a later flight that evening and all was well. And yes, we all had a good laugh over this when she finally made it back to the house. We all sat around chatting while Dressing Queen finished up the food prep and most of us were in bed before 2am. That's really early for our group the night before a shower and we were all pleased to get about 5 hours of sleep that night!

Blondie and I were up and at 'em the next morning at 7am and by 9am we were out the door. After a quick stop at Starbucks (yay caffeine!), we were back at the house and helping Dressing Queen set up the appetizer station and other food stuff.
As we neared noon, we all jumped into our dresses and finished setting the table with the centerpieces, putting the sign out in front of the house and pouring the wine for each course.
Before the guests arrived, we managed to squeeze in some group pics!

Dressing Queen did an amazing job with all of the food. The afternoon started off with appetizers in the family room right off the kitchen.

Cheese platter
Crafty stamped these cute signs to label each cheese
White peaches wrapped in proscuitto and drizzled with white balsalmic vinegar
White wine, cucumber water and limeade

Enjoying the food and drink

In addition to the food, Crafty put out a framed copy of the application Vino's fiance filled out way back in high school to date her! Crafty gave it to him as a joke, but he filled it out anyways. So funny! The formal luncheon started with a very funny speech from Dressing Queen and then it was time to eat! She put together a lovely spread for lunch.

Brie-stuffed strawberries with a balsamic glaze paired with rose sparkling wine

Sadly, this is the only picture I have of the food :/ After we finished the first course, we were up clearing plates and bringing out the rest of the food. None of us have ever worked in a restaurant before, so we were all really nervous about the serving as you can see.
It all went well, of course, but I was too busy to take pics. Booo! The rest of the courses were:
* Watermelon gazpacho with seafood salad and lemon-ginger dressing paired with chardonnay
* Berry sherbet with berry sparkling water, fresh fruit and a berry meringue cookie paired with sparkling wine
The food was delicious!!

Once lunch was completed, Vino opened all of the lovely gifts that everyone brought for her. To keep everyone entertained, we played the bingo game.

The loot! Filling out the bingo cards

Waiting to open the presents

Vino got some beautiful gifts, although I have no pictures of this either as I was in the kitchen repacking them so that she could get them home easier. Before we knew it, the guests started to leave. To thank them for coming, Crafty put together a really cute folder of recipes of the food enjoyed at the shower and a wine charm in which to remember the day. It even says "vino" on it! ;)
It was a great shower and Vino had a wonderful time. After everyone left, we hustled to clean and put away all the rental stuff and get the house back in some semblance of order. Thankfully, Crafty and her husband had already planned to go back the next day and help the hostess put the house back together as the rest of us were going to be recovering from the bacheloretter party. Little did we know just how much "recovery" some of us would need!