Tea Party Themed Baby Shower

Well this is long overdue, but better late than never!

This fall I helped to host a baby shower in honour of my sister Christina and niece/God Daughter, Emilia.

My sister has always LOVED tea parties. The women in my family are tea party obsessed, any chance my sister gets to go for high tea at a fancy hotel she does (okay, so do I). Earlier this year when I went to New York, my sister sent me on a mission to get the tea menu from the Plaza hotel.  I ended up getting the insides, but 2 visits and 3 asks later, this is all I was able to get. She was also after the pretty pink hardcover it sat it. I knew when it came to planning her baby shower that this tea party theme would be perfect! Thankfully, I also have a team of amazing women (my mom, aunts, and pseudo- aunts) that helped pull it all together.

We opted to hold the shower at a beautiful bed and breakfast where my sister and her husband spent their wedding night. It's a gorgeous character home called McVivcar Manor, and it was the perfect setting for this event.

I created the invitations through Paperless Post. It was easy, cost effective, efficient and not to mention beautiful. You can see we set the time for only two hours. We did this as a) nobody wants to give up an entire afternoon to go to a shower b) mama and baby are tired and the more efficient and less drawn out the event, the better!

I strongly believe that for a good event you need to have drinks and food ready as soon as people walk in so that is exactly what we did. For the menu we served a berries and cream, tea sandwiches, scones and jam and danties. You can see the full list in the menu/program I made below.

Instead of a guest book, I bought the hard cover book Eloise so it was also a keepsake. The guests signed their messages on different pages and we also chose a page at random for a door prize.

As I am one for efficiency and with only 2 hours, we also stayed away from doing a lot of games. We had a quiz on each place setting if people wanted to participate and for a little fun we had a basket of diapers that we asked people to fill out a funny or loving message to the parents. This was a real hoot, as some of the messages were hilarious; we read them out and gave prizes to the funniest ones.

It was a very lovely afternoon and Christina and Emilia loved it, although Emilia slept through most of it. Here are some pictures...

I LOVE this, I found the idea online and made it i PowerPoint. It sat at the entrance and now Mia has it in her room. 

The guest of honour...taking a little nap!

Grandma and her girls

My aunts, grandma, mom, sister, niece and cousin after the shower (ignore my mom's shoes haha)! Love these ladies so much!