Celebrating Baby Denver: A Fiesta Inspired Baby Shower
A couple weeks ago, I had one of the most beautiful parties I could have imagined to celebrate my baby boy coming soon. I wanted to share as many details as I can remember about our special day with you guys! Some things may be a little foggy because this pregnancy brain is a real thing and should probably draw you some type of disability check. I can never remember anything these days and I am praying it goes away after Denver enters this world. Anyways, I hope you guys love the shower as much as I did. I am also sharing a few fun ideas for you to use in the future.
THEME
First things first, choosing the theme!! I am obsessed with any and everything cactus, plus tribal and bright colors, so that is where the inspo for the shower came from. I felt it would also save me money down the road because I also wanted to decorate for him in this theme and figured I could just use some of the items from the shower for that. Mission accomplished for sure. I also really love Mexican food so this all really worked out well. There were pops of cactus, color, and Mexican vibes everywhere!!
REGISTERING
I want to be able to tell y'all how much fun it was registering for gifts, but you know I'm always honest with you guys. It may have been one of the most stressful things I've ever had to do. I chose to register at Target & BabyList. BabyList was pretty cool because you can literally choose anything from any website and add it to your registry. I really appreciated that concept. Target is a given, because who doesn't need another excuse to go there? I loved walking around scanning everything, that part was kind of fun. The problem was that I had NO idea what in the heck I needed to register for. I made a Facebook status asking everyone for their opinions of what I must have, because let's face it, it's faster than asking Google these days, and my people really came through for me with answers. I clearly post way too much because when I went to look back for all the suggestions, I couldn't even find the post. I took matters into my own hands and went and prayed that I ran into one of my mom friends, and thankfully I did! Before I saw her I was completely clueless, and looked like a lost puppy. She went down each aisle with me and showed me thing things I was really going to use and what I wasn't. I'm going to be doing a completely separate blog post on the things I got and what I find I can't live without before my son gets here.
INVITATIONS & LOCATION:
I was looking for somewhere with open space, with lots of white to have my shower. I found THE most perfect place for it. A brand new VRBO in East Nashville. This was a 4 story (including the rooftop) brand new house. If you are looking for somewhere to stay during your visit in Nashville, you will definitely want to check this out. I have included the link here where you can see all the pictures of the house and here to book on VRBO, I heard at least 12 people that attended tell me they wanted to just move in. I highly recommend it.
Margaret Rivas with Oak Street Design Studio helped me recreate these invitations! Love.
I also made these fun little inserts, which was a really sweet way to get some great books for my son. I also loved the fact that people wrote little messages in the front or backs of the books.
FOOD
No fiesta would be complete without a taco or nacho bar. We had catering from Moe's which was delicious, the cutest vegetable tray made by my mom with the best ranch dip of all time, & chips, salsa & queso. The girls had the best & cutest idea to serve the chips in a sombrero. Everything was perfect.
The cake and cookies were made by Nashville Sweets. You guys have got to check out their Instagram @nashvillesweetsshop or their website here to see all of their amazing and delicious desserts. They are located in East Nashville as well. They even incorporated the V from my Native in Nashville logo into my son's name on the cake and cookies. SOOOO dang cute. Everything was almost too pretty to eat. I highly recommend using them for your custom cakes and cookies.
GAMES... OR SHOULD I SAY ACTIVITIES
I have never been a big fan of baby shower games, but over my many years of attending showers & events, I had to have some of the things I have seen that stuck with me.
Guess the baby's arrival date, Advice for Mommy & More:
One of my favorite shower activities has always been printing off a calendar and having everyone guess what day baby will actually make his arrival. I particularly like this one, because the last shower I went to that had this, I was the one who guessed correctly (lol). This is something I am going to put in a frame and hang up. We also had everyone write down words of encouragement and advice, which I am not ashamed to say that I so greatly need. One other thing that I love and will keep forever, is the frame that people signed all around his ultrasound picture, with little notes to him. On this little table we also had people fill out an envelope with their addresses so that it makes life a little easier on me when I send out thank you cards.
Snapchat Geotag Filter. One of my favorite hobbies & apps ever is Snapchat. I couldn't go without having a filter for Denver's shower. I found one I liked on Etsy by SnappyDaysCo and had the shop owner customize it for me. If you need a snapchat filter for any occasion, I highly recommend using Alexandra. You can click here to go straight to her shop. It was a hit and I definitely reminded everyone at the shower, every time I saw them snapping to use it. This is the one we used at the shower. It only costs about $20 some dollars total including the fee I paid to Snapchat and the customization fee. She was great at communicating and her directions on how to get it submitted and approved through Snapchat were very user friendly.
We also had a photo booth type area on the rooftop of the house!! :)
PARTY FAVORS
I might be a little biased but these party favors were awesome. They turned out to be a bit pricey because I made 50 of them and you guys know that EOS lip balm is good stuff and a little over $3 each. I also had to buy cardstock and a big hole punch to make them, as well as the image from Etsy. The link for these is here. I had her customize them a bit from the sample but she was easy to work with and they turned out exactly as I hoped. I probably spent about $200 total for these but they were so worth it. I'm all about making people laugh and/or smile, and these were a definite hit, plus practical long after the shower !!
I am so thankful for my amazing friends who hosted my shower, my sister-in-law, Laura, best friends Tamina and Kalahn. My friend Kelly also helped out so much with bringing decorations, Amy helped with food and Cody of Jennifer Cody Weddings ( @jennifercodyweddings ) made the delicious punch and took lots of pictures, which you guys have seen above and will see more below. Kalahn's mom also helped a lot with helping set up. I know how much time and effort went into making the shower special, even from myself. Everyone coming to spend part of their day celebrating my sweet boy, and all the great gifts we received meant so much to me. So thank you all! One last detail that many people have asked me about. My dress is from Fillyboo Maternity. They have the most magical handmade boho style dresses.
For the full gallery from the shower click here. Just as an update my due date is 4.5 weeks from today!! I can't believe he is almost here. Thank you guys for reading and following along with me through my pregnancy journey.
XO,
Amber
