Modern Vintage Green + Gold Bridal Shower Luncheon

This has been the year for weddings in our church!  I am the shower coordinator right now and this is the 3rd bridal shower  + 1 baby shower we have had since March.  And one more to go before the year is done.  I enjoy being stretched and challenged in my decorating and seeing how I can improve and work with the bride’s or mommy-to-be’s theme and colors each time.  It is good practice in decorating (and hosting/hospitality if it happens to be at my house.

This particular shower was for a sweet couple who plan to get married in December.  I have known him since he was 8 or 9 years old and have gotten to know his girlfriend/now fiancé a lot through Instagram and Facebook – we have a lot of the same tastes and interest in photography and they have been a fun couple to enjoy watch grow together over time.

This particular shower was at my house.  And ladies in the church helped provide the food.  The bride’s theme for her wedding is modern vintage with her colors being emerald green, light green, and a light pink/peach with accents of gold.  Usually I have some kind of décor, linens, etc that are part of the bride’s colors but this time I had nothing!  I had already realized that I really need to add some metallic interest – touches of golds, etc. to my décor in my home and this confirmed it even more.

But I was happy with what I was able to pull together with other things I had, a few party supplies I purchased, and touches of color in the food.

I completely re-arranged my dining room, pulling my buffet table out of the corner and across the room to in between the 2 windows.  I used my DIY chalkboard made from an old  picture frame as the backdrop and then served mini fruit salad cups on my vintage china on serving stands.

I saw the idea for the individual fruit salad cups on Pinterest and just loved it.  And they were yummy with fresh strawberries, kiwi, grapes, and blueberries.  You can find those cups at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby.

I did the cake this time and decided to do cupcakes.  I was very happy when I found all the pieces to pull together these fun, sweet gold cupcakes for a pop of the shimmery gold I was needing on the table.

They were chocolate cupcakes baked in gold foil liners (found at Michael’s) and topped with caramel cream cheese buttercream!  Oh so good!  I sprinked with edible pearls that you can find in any cake aisle and made the cute little heart toppers with heart stickers from the scrapbook aisle in Michael’s stuck on popsicle sticks!  So easy, yet they were so adorable!!

I pushed my dining room table all the way against the wall and blocked the doorway into the kitchen with a piece of scrap beadboard layered with white shutters and a DIY LOVE sign hung on twine with clothespins.  I hung tissue balls and paper lanterns from the ceiling for added height.  For the table, I topped the table with a white tablecloth, then a plastic green tablecloth, then a yard sale lace curtain panel, and then a burlap table runner that I dotted with gold polka dots (just with a round foam paint brush and some gold craft paint).

I brought in some of the vintage feel with my vintage gold-rimmed china plates that happened to have pink flowers on them as well.

The rest of the food consisted of fruit pizza (you can find the recipe here.)

Chicken salad crossaints

and bacon wrapped sausages.  If you have never had these, stop reading right now and go add bacon and mini weiners to your grocery list.  I will share the recipe later this week for these – they are a super yummy appetizer type food and for those of you that do “game day food” with the start of football season, these would be perfect to add to your table.

There are so many ways you can decorate for a shower but for working mainly with things I had, I am happy with how this came out.

For drinks, we had coffee punch and sweet tea.   I added green to this table by stuffing the green napkins and green striped straws into the glasses we were using.

The coffee punch ended up being an extra welcome since that Saturday was I think the hottest of the summer so far almost reaching 100 degrees!  Several of you asked for the recipe for that last time I mentioned it, so look for that recipe later this week as well.  It is easy, a crowd pleaser, and so good!!

I rely a lot on ideas on Pinterest for food, décor, and colors when I am working on planning a shower.  So hopefully these ideas will help you as you plan birthday parties, showers, or other types of gatherings in your home.   Don’t be afraid to rearrange rooms, hang things from your walls/ceilings, and host a larger gathering in your home.  Our living room is small and we had 20+ people there, but we squeezed chairs in wherever they could fit and a few just mingled in the kitchen while gifts and games were being done.

Have you ever hosted a bridal or baby shower?  Where did you find inspiration for your decorations/theme and how did you decorate?