An Evening in Paris

My oldest sister, Ashley, is getting married in just under two weeks and my little sister, Mom and I threw her a Paris themed boudoir shower. It was so much fun! The colors were black, white and red and we tried to theme the food as much as possible too. (warning: lots of pictures!)

Here's the spread...

A colleague/friend of mine owns a wedding decor business and was kind enough to lend me much of the decorations, like this adorable candelabra turned-lamp. It was perfect!

I got to pull out our china for the first time ever! I forgot how much I love it. If only we had room for a big fat china cabinet to display it all!

This is actually our big ol' TV in the living room. I covered it with a damask table cloth and filled my cloche with red rose petals. The little red things scattered about are little red rubies.

And we served wine, which gave me an excuse to use our hardly used wine glasses!

Here is some of the loot. And you will notice my damask chair that I made over was the Bride's chair for the evening!

I really loved the way that the mantle came out. I used red roses, candles, white feathers and red petals to get the effect. Oh and a really cute pump! :)

For the favors, my little sister and I made every girl a red chocolate shoe and the bride a white one. I LOVE the way they turned out! And they were perfect for a Paris/fashion theme!

And THIS baby was the cake! It was red velvet with creamy buttercream frosting (made from scratch!). It turned out every bit the way that I was planning it all along! And little sister had that Eiffel tower which was perfect for the top. And Dad brought it to her from Paris which was a neat touch.

These were Escargot. We wanted the authentic French fare, which escargot is definitely a part of. But who wants to eat snails?!?! (no offense to my French friends!) So I scoured the net for a snail shell candy mold and we made them out of white chocolate! A yummy trade off if I do say so myself!

And whats a party without a Port Wine cheeseball??

Those little cookies are called Madeleins. They are a French cookie and are absolutely delish! And then of course...grapes!

This would be (in my opinion) the star of the show as far as food was concerned (second to the cake). Its Brie cheese, which if you have never tried you definitely should, topped with 4 berry jam and wrapped in puff pastry. It was so warm and gooey and delicious. And really easy to make!

We also had cream puffs (yumm!) and the staple of every good shower, cranberry pecan chicken salad croissants. Everything tasted amazing. I am so grateful of Mom and Sarah's hard work to help me pull this off!

And here is the bride opening her box of goodies for the wedding night ;) Ooh la la!

Beautiful sister with her cake! 

 Instead of making her fidget with a corsage all evening, we decided to buy her a dozen red roses.

And there you have it. The bridal shower of the year! ;) It was so much fun. I would definitely advise anyone to use this theme if they are doing a lingerie shower. It was so fun and everything was very classy and elegant.