Practical Wedding Guide: The Bridal Shower

Just finished organizing the bridal shower mini-party in honor of our friend and colleague, Juvy Panos, yesterday, July 29, 2012, Sunday. She'll be walking-down-the-aisle comes August 21, 2012 with her long time sweetheart, Roy Platon.

It was a fantastic gathering of Juvy's friends in the university.

The bride-to-be, Juvy Panos

Me and Juvy before the start of the program

One can truly see and feel how special her friendship to everyone, with each guest's effort to come to the gathering and through their laughter and cooperation, one thing is certain, she's a great colleague. Juvy remains very humble, kind-hearted and down-to-earth all through out these years, thus, gaining more friends as the years gone by.

The small gathering was held at the function room of Yellow Hauz, a very exclusive and almost residential cafe house in Davao City, along V. Mapa Street just besides Mabini Complex.

Even before the party was realized, I thought of organizing it according to the personality attributes of Juvy: conservative, simple, fun-loving and humble, naughtiness was definitely out of the option.

There are two kinds of a pre-wedding party dedicated to the bride-to-be, BRIDAL SHOWER and BACHELORETTE/HEN PARTY and organizers must know exactly where among these two types is suited best to the personality of the bride-to-be.

Bridal Shower aims to shower the future bride with gifts, warm messages and thoughts and of course fun and laughter while the Bachelorette or hen party, others may even call it a lingerie party, is purely an adult gathering with plenty of naughtiness offering the bride with gag gifts and the party is an informal one.

I chose the Bridal Shower because it is more sensible and practical. I also put into consideration the personality of the participants and made sure everyone would enjoy the gathering.

Here are the party elements of the Bridal Shower I organized for Juvy:

Party Theme: Home Sweet Home

Party Colors: Pink, Blue and Green

Party Prizes: Sweets and Candies

The reason why I chose this area to be the venue of this gathering is due to its very quiet, relaxing and homely atmosphere which reflect our party theme: HOME SWEET HOME.

The place epitomizes coziness and serenity of a beautiful home where everybody can relax and enjoy and temporarily forget the clutters in life. You would never hear any noise of the maddening crowd in the city.

There were 24 participants who attended and I was very thankful that they had responded the invitation I dispatched positively. It was Sunday and considering that last Saturday, July 28, they were attending the Acquaintance party whole day, I never thought they would really grace the event, yet they made it and very cooperative during our fun games, so grateful to them and no amount of words could ever describe the happiness and joy that Juvy felt upon seeing them. She was deeply touched with their efforts to attend and their generosity for bringing expensive gifts.

To avoid boredom, I divided the fun games into two parts. The first game was something to do with our theme, Home Sweet Home, followed by a game about the bride-to-be then a "Gossip Line", a few minute break then we proceeded to two more games followed by a special game for the bride.

This special game determined how well the bride knows the guests. Without any hint or clue from the expression of the guests, Juvy was able to guess accurately some friends who wrote the memorable good wishes from the line of their messages alone.

While taking a break, I broached one question for the married guests to answer:

" How to overcome JEALOUSY in a relationship"

I loved hearing their responses, it was all wonderful and remarkable and I know every single lady and even married guests learned something from the sharing. Ate Pearly blurted her excellent views followed by Ate Vicky, Ate Caring and Ate Vangie and the rest of the married participants, it was a very fruitful and thought-provoking sharing.

Here are what we had learned:

Do not nag, a man extremely detested it.
Do not make annoying prodding where he gone, who were his companion, etc.
Do not insist that he was hiding something especially if you have no proof.
Do not try to launch a terrible confrontation if you are not prepared with his outburst.
Do not force him to answer your inquiries with things you don't like to hear.
Be contented with his answers to your questions.
Trust your instinct, if a man is really guilty of something, your intuition will prove you correct.
Trust and respect will help revitalize your relationship. If you love him, trust him.
Jealousy is a sign of insecurity and immaturity and men do not like it in general.
Be confident with yourself.
Always remember that you are beautiful.
Feel secure all the time.

There you go ladies, take note with the above sharing from happily married women. Hahahaha, I was really listening intently to the sharing.

Well, I may add this "A man will treat a girl the way she shows how she wants to be treated", this is an old adage but it still holds water, I mean behave as a decent woman and the rest will follow. Remember that trust and respect are very crucial for a relationship to survive.

The Gift giving and explanation why they chose the item was the highlight of the party. I was truly amazed(I am sure Juvy also), with the generosity and thoughtfulness of all the guests who attended, because they bought such expensive items and I was so ashamed because I only bought a cheap but cute present hehehehe.

We had a toast afterwards. We were running out of time so I was not able to go to the color grouping, photo session and closing remarks and prayer.

The 24 guests who made the event very entertaining and full of energy and fun which made Juvy very happy also:

Beldad, Mirafe
Borneo, Carla
Borneo, Fe
Canoy, Anna Mae
Cedeño, Precy
Colastre, Vangie
Dacanay, Kathy
Dela Vega, Pearly
Delima, Margie
Frigillano, Jasi
Fullido, Emelda
Lamela, Joyce (me hehe!)
Ligan, Vangie
Llanasas, Ester
Lugo, Arlene
Madura, Cherrie
Maranga, Rachelle
Marangit, Sheena
Monte, Emma
Priete, Rochelle
Rañeses, Vicky
Roa, Caridad
Sacopayo, Anaflor
Tayo, Mariquita

Snippet of the event.

Ester, Precy and Ate Caring

Anaflor, Arlene and Ate Melds

Ate Caring, Ate Ikit and Vangie Colastre

Sweet laughter from Ate Pearly, Rochelle and Sheena

Timeless beauties and models. Ate Vicky and Mam Fe

Ate Pearly presenting her gifts to Juvy while Margie and Jasi looked on

Elongated shot hehe!

Maimai, Cherrie, Arlene, Vangie, Ate Caring, Ate Vangie and Ate Feng

Emma and my goddaughter, Daniela, the youngest participant hehe

Kathy and Rachelle

Serving pasta concoctions

More photos at Photobucket which you can access through the wedding site of Roy and Juvy, CLICK IT HERE

Foods: Fettucine, Bolognese, Potato Wedges, Fries Twister, Cream Gelatin dessert with fruit cocktail

Pomegranate Juice

Toast: Pomegranate Juice. I chose this drink as a toast beverage for Juvy's happy and successful married life because of the significance of the Pomegranate fruit in married life. This fruit symbolizes happiness, love, faith, abundance, wealth and fertility.

During ancient time, newlyweds in Egypt used to put pomegranate at the foot of their bed to signify fertility. It was mentioned in the Holy Bible seven times and King Solomon used it as a design of his crown. Queen Catherine, the first wife of King Henry VIII of England, a former Princess of Spain (youngest daughter of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile) used Pomegranate as her status symbol.

Party Favors: Pencil wrapped in green ribbonet with Juvy's picture tag

Fun games prizes: Individually-wrapped sweets

Bridal Shower Keepsake
A compilation of the messages of Best Wishes from the guests

The precious household gifts from the guests

As an organizer of the party, I was so grateful and very thankful for the cooperation and generosity of the guests. It was truly a momentous event, hope they had really enjoyed the party and no regrets for giving up the three hours of their family day just to be with us.

To the rest of the guests, thank you so much for sharing your precious Sunday time with the bride-to-be and thank you for your laughter, for making everyone happy especially Juvy and for the grand time we shared. It was very precious for the bride-to-be to see you there.

Thank you again and may God continue to shower you with wonderful graces from heaven. Thank you also to Miss Rowena Tagaan for the donation she sent to make the party very successful. A very special thanks to Miss Kathy Dacanay for her unique talent in photography, she was our official photographer on that event. Thanks also to Miss Anna Mae Canoy (maimai) and Ms. Cherrie Erno Madura for their enduring assistance, Anaflor Sacopayo for helping me realized the Tarpaulin creation hehe! Cherrie also donated one dozen party balloons!

I wanted to put up a business of Party Essentials, so I was really courageous to host this bridal shower party for Juvy to experience how does it feel to organize an event.

As with the rest of "first timers", I was not expecting my effort to wrap up a 100% perfect performance. I had some lapses and lesson to learn in organizing.

Here are my lapses:

1. I should have anticipated some troubles along the way. Yellow Hauz has no enough glass for the guests to use, too bad I didn't bring a disposable glass, so the result, the pomegranate juice was not evenly distributed to the guests during the toast, only few participated on the toast. So frustrating!huhu

2. I was not careful with the time table so we started very late and the program I prepared unfortunately did not make it to the three hour booking agreement. In order to avoid paying our excess time, I skip the last two or three steps of the program and just ended with the toast. We missed going through with the round photo session portion, the closing remarks and closing prayer. I was supposed to group the participants according to the color of the shirts/dress they wore.

3. I was not able to organize the toast orderly so we ended up rambling inside the function room hehe. I was supposed to give this speech toast:

"I'll propose a toast for Juvy's wonderful life ahead as she enters into another chapter of her life, may she will be blessed with excellent health and fantastic married life with the man she dearly loved. I had chosen pomegranate juice as a toast drink because it symbolizes happiness, warmth, love, loyalty, abundance, wealth and fertility. Raise your glass and wish for Juvy's happiness and health. Cheers!"

4. I was not able to choose a delectable dessert for the guests to enjoy, I thought of buying decorative cupcakes but I was running out of time because the placing of order should be three weeks before the party, so I ended up preparing a creamy gelatin dessert.

Nevertheless, I still believed it was a fantastic gathering of Juvy's friends and with the help of the guests, made it a memorable pre-wedding party.