In late September 2018, I got to plan the baby shower for my French colleague on her last day before maternity leave. As she lived quite far from work and the invitees were mostly colleagues or former colleagues, I found a local venue not too far from work. I contacted roughly a dozen venues and opted for a pub with a semi-private Games area that can be separated from the rest of the venue by closing thick curtains. Most venues with private rooms for hire either cost a hefty hire fee or minimum spend or come with an event menu that can be quite pricey. As usual, my budget was to be as minimal as possible.
I created an event page on Facebook to invite the attendees, keep track of RSVPs and share the gift list with them.
As a theme, I went with French, specifically Bordeaux as that is the home town of the mother-to-be. I planned to have canvas bags printed for all guests to hang over the back of each chair and for the guests to take home. It was supposed to give a French flair to the room by featuring a drawn image from a vintage newspaper ad, the name of one of the markets in Bordeaux, the name of the mother-to-be and the date of the baby shower in a vintage scroll. Unfortunately, it turned out that having the bags printed would have been too expensive for the budget and the DIY transfer method I tried was not providing the desired results so I abandoned the idea. Unfortunately, none of the venues in our budget were able to provide French themed food as I had planned, but the nibble platters that I ordered went down well with the guests.
As the mother-to-be is a big fan of Nutella, I collected the empty glasses from her for a few weeks, cleaned them, removed the labels and then made my own transfer labels with duct tape and a drawn image of the medieval gate to Bordeaux, Porte Cailhau. I used the glasses as gifts for the attendees and filled them with macaroons, mini lemon meringues and mini portions of Nutella with a little note from the mother-to-be thanking them for coming.
I used a few items that I already had at home and bought online some faux lavender and paper napkins with white and blue grapes on them. Additionally, I made a banner with white baby growths on which I painted a letter each to spell “bébé”, the French word for baby.
We didn’t play any baby shower games, guests enjoyed talking with each other and listening to the music instead. However, I prepared some activities and created a guest book out of a painted picture frame and cut out little paper shirts in light and darker blue which were clipped on to the lines with wooden mini clothes pegs after the attendees had signed them. They also got to write down their ideas for a possible name for the baby and got to fill in advice cards for the parents which we collected in a grey box which the parents will be able to use for several different purposes.
Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun and enjoyed the food, the music was good and the mother-to-be seemed very happy to receive all the lovely gifts.
Jess Creates Events 