The Future Mrs. Creature's Bridal Shower

My Best Friend's Wedding...

IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER!!!

Having been engaged for almost 1 year now, we've begun the round of first time wedding craziness! The planned date is for late July...though I don't know what the menu will be, I can't wait to tell you all about it!!
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The Future Mr. and Mrs. are the cutest things ever! They work hard, own a wonderful house, a great piece of land and two of the most beautiful labs (black & chocolate) to make their lives complete...at least for now ;-)

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The Future Mrs. Creature was a lifesaver for my big day. Hubs and I kept our wedding party small with his Big Bro (aka Papa Sox) as the best man, my Lil' Sis as the Maid of Honor and then we each selected one special person to serve as groomsman and bridesmaid. The Future Mrs. Creature was my pick and she was fabulous!! With my Lil' Sis in Chicago it was difficult for her to fulfill many of the duties, though she did what she could by email and phone. Instead the many bridezilla moments, chaos, showers, bachelorette etc were bestowed upon the one and only Future Mrs. Creature.

She filled her role with grace and unbelievable calm...now it is payback time. I keep waiting for an opportunity to help or assist with some major or minor wedding detail, but so far I've been off the hook. Other than showing up to events, giving an occasional yes/no to our festive plans, or sharing my thoughts/opinion on occasion, I've had it relatively easy.

On May 22, 2010 we kicked off the engagement and upcoming wedding celebration with the traditional Bridal Shower...a beautiful day, gorgeous setting, and fabulous company made this a day to remember!

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There are six of us in the bridal party, with only two (myself and the NYC chickie) not in the immediate geographic area. With that said it was all local hands on deck. I drove down the morning of to find my mother already preparing my contribution to the feast. An hour prior I swung by the party location to see if there was anything I could do to help. The other girls and mothers were busy at work in the kitchen and setting up...off the hook again! Instead my sole mission was to deliver the beautiful Bride to Be (B2B) fashionably late.

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I headed off to the Future Mr. and Mrs. Creature's house and when I arrived I found the B2B dressed in a gorgeous coral'ish colored summer dress painting her nails. We sat and caught up on life, gossip, wedding planning, so on and so forth. This shower was not a surprise to the B2B, so she was eager to get going to make it on time. In order to kill some time (and take the edge off) we enjoyed a glass of sparkling wine.
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Immediately upon arrival the Mother of the Bride (MOB) gifted her daughter this oh-so appropriate drinking vessel...haha!

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The festive drink of the day was this delicious spin on a mimosa...sweet fruit nectar/punch and sparkling wine dressed with delicious fruit.

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Of course we all enjoyed a few of these throughout the day!
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The party was an Asian Potluck theme and nearly all of the items were homemade.
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These are Classic Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting baked by MOB. She creatively dressed them to make these Asian Carrot Cupcakes...
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Oh, I have an idea! I think I might have to play around with the delicious combo of making Carrot Ginger Cupcakes...sounds good right?!?!
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And here it is...the Mango Sticky Rice Platter! A beautiful presentation by one of the Bridesmaids...really a dazzlingly simple arrangement that was nothing short of holy freakin' yum!!
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It's already June 3rd and I still can't shake the thought of this absolutely scrumptious combination from my head or stomach haha!!!!!!
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Elegant, handsome? Not sure what the right word is here...
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A skilled arrangement of salty prosciutto and cheese wrapped asparagus, tied together with fresh chive. While not all that Asian, the sight and palatableness of these added much joy to the day's tasty offerings!
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MOB also made these...homemade Spring Rolls! I have been dying to make these at home and even have the special wrappers on hand to do so. However like with the double boiler, I am intimidated by the technique of hydrating the dried wrappers. After seeing MOB prepare these and consuming my fair share, I'M GOING FOR IT! Perhaps even as soon as this weekend!!
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Chocolate...when you fill a house full of women, you need to have some chocolate on hand. To be honest, I didn't actually try of one of these (I was too busy with the sticky rice), but based on what I've heard they were 'soooo good!' Even just looking at them, you can tell they were good...soft chocolaty cake filled with creamy chocolaty filling, oh yeah!
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One of the extended family members produced this giant bowl of Peanut Noodles. Not sure of her recipe and would actually kind of like to get it...this dish was DELISH! I have had many, many versions of Peanut Noodles, but this one had the PERFECT balance of flavor. I prefer my noodles to have a strong sweet, salty peanut buttery flavor and this definitely brought it!!
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As you can probably guess this was my contribution to the party.
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Kim Bop...a traditional Korean seaweed wrap. My mother's version includes pork, pickled diakon, spinach, carrot and egg. My friends just love this stuff and actually call it sushi...I've given up on trying to correct them haha!
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Originally the plan was for my mother and I to make this together, but when I arrived to town she of course had already started. As they always do when I come home, I was told to relax and just enjoy myself...so I took Pups for a walk. It's always a mini vaca when visiting my parents haha!
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Here are the shower gifts for guests. The local bridesmaids once again took control of this and did such a wonderful job! So creative and festive...nice work ladies!!!
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In addition to the food above there was grilled beef, chicken, fried rice and dumplings.
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B2B digs in...and so do we all. Everything was delectable!!
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After the late lunch we moved onto gifts. The usual embarrassing items suggestive of the wedding night and being newlyweds were of course present (I contributed to that side of things), as well as a TON of kitchen and household items from their registry.
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All in all the Future Mr. and Mrs. Creature made out well...VERY WELL :o)
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After gifts, we had dessert...and boy oh boy did I have dessert!
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We discovered the mango sticky rice in combination with the locally made coconut ice cream was OUT OF THIS WORLD! I can't even tell you how much of this I ate...it's actually hard to say, since each time I brought a plate of it out the other gals couldn't keep their folks out of it as well!!!
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The day was absolutely fabulous! I miss seeing these girls so often and always have a great time with them when I do visit :o)

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The Future Mrs. Creature's next big event...the Bachelorette Weekend! Yes, that's right we've begun a tradition (with my bachelorette last summer) of turning this typical one night event into a three day, two night party/adventure!!! Can't wait...expect there to be some delicious seafood coming from that one, cause we're headed to the coast!