Wedding Wednesday - Our First Wedding Shower

It's Wednesday! And guess what - last weekend (it's almost been two weekends now) when Ryan and I were in Mississippi, we were given our first wedding shower! Dear friends from First Baptist Church of Collinsville; the church I grew up in, gave us a shower while we were in town and we were overwhelmingly blessed! 

The shower was on Sunday, May 15th at 2:30 at the home of one of my Mom's dear friends - who also happens to be our wedding coordinator - Connie! So many of my Mom's friends helped pitch in to get everything ready and Ryan and I were absolutely in awe of everything!

The set up was beautiful! There was a lovely entry table with pictures of Ryan and I as we were growing up - my personal favorite is the center picture that is both Ryan and I when we were about 2.5! 

The food was amazing too! There were chicken salad sandwiches, sausage balls, cream cheese bites, fruit & cheese skewers, a cheese & cracker tray, personalized sugar cookies, cupcakes, chocolate dipped strawberries, shrimp & grits, fruit cups, pecans, pretzels, chips and salsa(s). Are you full yet? We also had a delicious mandarin orange punch and the best stuff ever - coffee punch! 

So many sweet friends came to the shower to celebrate us! My friend (and bridesmaid) Nickolee came all the way from North Mississippi with her girls; her youngest helped with handing out all the presents. My friend and college roommate Kristen and her husband came from Jackson and it was so nice to catch up with all of them. Family from North Mississippi and South Mississippi came and everything was just wonderful!

 

We snapped pictures with some of the organizers and lovely people who helped make the shower so special, including my Mom's friends Connie, Hope and Tina and Tina's daughter McKenna. My Aunt Beth and my cousin Jodi were also a part of putting everything together for us!

A Southern tradition (I think it's Southern - my Yankee had never heard of it) says that for each bow you break while unwrapping gifts, you'll have a child! Well Ryan decided that it would be his mission to break as many bows as possible and I think the final count was somewhere around 15! I got the biggest kick out of my friend's daughter leaning over and asking her "did you and Dad only break two bows at your showers?" Hilarious! 

 

One of the touches I really loved was that instead of a guest book that would likely gather dust, they used a devotional as the guest book and had everyone choose a page to sign or leave a little note! I loved this so much that I'm planning to take it to my other showers and ask guests to do the same! Such a wonderful and encouraging keepsake! 

 

We were absolutely blown away by the love and generosity we were shown at our shower and we were also in awe yet again at my Dad's incredible packing skills! We managed to (just barely) get all our gifts into the back of our car for the return home! What an incredible first shower - we are so very blessed!