Mandy's Getting Married!

My sweet cousin, Mandy, is getting married and we've spent a few weekends celebrating together before the wedding. It's been a blast. The festivities began with a bridal shower I hosted a few weekends ago.

Here's the spread... Mixed greens with strawberries, almonds and creamy poppy seed dressing, chicken satay with peanut sauce, Monte Cristo quesedillas with sour cream, chicken salad croissants, veggies, strawberries & grapes, punch, and cupcakes.

And some of the decorations. Tissue paper pom poms a la Martha Stewart. (Horrible lighting, sorry about that)

"Soon to be Mrs. Scott" banner

Mandy opening some gifts

I printed the RSVP cards on 5x7 index cards and designed them as postcards. The front said, "Mandy loves to cook/So give her a recipe from your book/Breakfast, lunch or dinner for two/When she cooks it, she will think of you!" I also put a note not to say anything about the recipe collection to her so that it would be a surprise. And on the back were the lines for the guests to write their favorite recipe. I bought a plain blue scrapbook album from Hobby Lobby (50% off!), and found an antique handkerchief with pretty crocheting along the edge and a fork and spoon from an antique store. I used a hammer to flatten the fork and spoon, and put them on top of the folded up hankie, and used wire to attach them to the album (through a hole that I drilled... yeah, I use power tools. I'm cool like that). The inside of the album was very plain, with just one or two recipes per page and some cute kitchen-y stickers. It was simple but turned out really cute (or so I think), and I think Mandy really liked it.

Mandy's Nana, her mom (Aunt Diane), and her mother-in-law to-be

As per tradition with my friends, whenever one of us gets married, we spend a weekend down at Disney. We did it before my and Shannon's weddings so I knew it wouldn't be much of a surprise for Mandy to see this sign...
But we didn't give her any details about the weekend so there were still some surprises.

She didn't know we'd be eating at The Wave of American Flavors.

And she didn't know that we'd be busting a move to the Wii Just Dance 2 back in the hotel room.

Mandy has dancing skills.

Me? I don't have dancing skills, but I have lots of fun!

Kristina shaking her boo-tay!

Danielle... Not really sure what to say about this one other than she was REALLY excited about something!

Shannon takes her dance moves very seriously.

We made Mandy get dressed blindfolded. Only she had to get dressed in underclothes. Over her clothes. She'd wring my neck if I showed the rest of the pictures from this game.

This was the view right outside our hotel room. We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside and it was beautiful!

Our whole group: Shannon, Danielle, Mandy, Kristina, and me. On Saturday night we had dinner at Kouzzina, one of Cat Cora's delicious restaurants. The meal was amazing!

I absolutely love these girls and it was great to spend some time with them. We hardly see each other any more, so a whole weekend together was fantastic!