A gorgeous celebration for a NYC teacher

We met Jane last Fall and from the first meeting we were so excited to help her plan her daughter’s Bridal Shower. Originally the event was to be held in the common room in her daughter’s NYC apartment building, but that plan fell through so we suggested one of our favorite venues Locande Verde, in TriBeCa. We absolutely LOVE the private room at Locande; it’s spacious, rustic, full of light and perfect for any celebration. And did we mention the food is some of the best in the city?? We first worked at Locande last year for a Singing in the Rain bridal shower, one of our absolute favorites! Finding the perfect venue in NYC can be challenging — so much so that we have an amazing venue scout Laurie Basloe that works with our clients to locate that perfect spot to host a memorable event. Let us walk you through how we pulled off this adorable bridal shower for our new friend Jane, and her daughter Nicole.

Nicole is a teacher in the NYC school system so what better way to celebrate her hard work than a teacher themed bridal shower.  We love the little details but were very careful to keep them subtle and tasteful, as too much can be a bad thing when it comes to a theme for an adult party.  We started our design work by focusing on the table settings. We made simple pencil vases by glueing pencils to the outside of square vases and filled them with gorgeous flowers.

To add some varying height, we stacked the some pretty covered books under a few of the vases. Mini school buses were placed around the tables and we put up signs on each table labeling them “Classroom 1” and “Classroom 2.”

The apple is a symbol for teachers and teaching — students have given shiny fresh apples to their teachers on the first day of school for over a century. So we thought this was the perfect way to display each guests name card at their place setting. We took 60 apples, sprayed them gold, cut a slit in the top of each and tucked the name card in. They turned out amazing!

Every teacher lives by their lesson plans so we decided to take the brunch menu and convert it into a lesson plan for each guest.

Something fun we have incorporated into many bridal showers is Bridal Mad Libs, which give advice for the new Bride-to-Be. Everyone has different opinions about “games” at showers, but Mad Libs is a way to get guests involved at their own leisure during the event. Simply place one copy at each guests place setting along with pen. The Bride-to-Be can either collect the completed Mad Libs at the end of the event and read them later with her fiance or some choose to have their bridesmaids read some of the silly answers out loud.

Another very easy “game” we prepared was called ‘Who has the Groom.’  Jane saw this online and thought it would be a hilarious way to get everyone involved. What I did was print out 60 copies of a man in a black tuxedo. Then in place of his head, I cut out pictures of movie stars, musicians, and basically any man I could find in my US Weekly and People Magazine. I even used Nicole’s Dog for one!  One of the men was Nicole’s fiancé Matt, and when each guest opened up the envelope on their chair it was hilarious to see everyone’s reactions of Who has the Groom!

It’s amazing how creative cakes have become, and this cake was no exception. We turned to our friends at Empire Cake to create this modern and chic cake for Nicole. It turned out better than we could have imagined and had just a subtle nod to the teacher theme by featuring all white letters and pink letters that spelled out LOVE.

On the gorgeous stone mantle we leaned an oversized black chalkboard reading “Welcome to Romance 101” along with childhood school photos of the couple.  We surrounded the chalkboard with tons of fresh flowers and gold letters spelling out XO and ABC.

We loved incorporating photos into our events so it only seemed fitting to set up a School Photo Booth, complete with backdrop and fun props! We created a custom backdrop on Minted and set out a ton of fun wedding props for the ladies to get silly with. Our amazing assistant Ali was there with a polaroid ready to capture all of the fun!

We also used the most adorable school photos of the happy couple in our entry sign which directed guests as to which table they were seated at.  The design of the sign, courtesy of our Ali of course, made it look like the guests names were written a piece of notebook paper and pinned onto a cork board.  How perfect!

Guests were given a fabulous “lunchbox” filled with goodies to take home.  We had apple cake pops, personalized cookies, chocolate covered oreos made by Jane, personalized pencils and custom water bottles.

Locande Verde is one of the most popular restaurants in Manhattan and it’s obvious why. Besides a fantastic atmophsphere, the food is exceptional.  Brunch is served family style and guests were treated to an array of tasty dishes!

We absolutely loved being a party of this gorgeous and love-filled event.  Jane was so anxious and excited to give Nicole the absolute best shower ever…and we hope we made that happen!

Good luck at the wedding in August!! You guys are a gorgeous couple and we wish you nothing but the best.

A special thanks to Raquel Bianca Creative for the gorgeous photos, as usual.