Guest Post: Engagement Party Advice from a Real Bride To Be

A few weeks ago we introduced you to our new guest blogger, Carolyn, a real bride to be that will be sharing her wedding planning journey with us! Today’s post highlights her engagement party, with lots of fun ideas for you all if you are planning one yourself! Take it away Carolyn…

Engagement Party: The Meeting of the Families | by: Guest Blogger Carolyn Thombs

Sometimes Engagement parties can be a larger soiree where all of the friends of the couple get together to give their congratulations. Another option is to include the families. My younger sister, Colleen, (my maid of honor) thought it would be a wonderful time for both of our immediate families to fully meet each other and spend some time together. This was the best option for us since our families live a few hours apart.

My sister arranged the whole thing! She really did a wonderful job from sending the invites (specially made) to planning the meal and styling the decor. She truly amazes me!

For the menu she wanted to choose items that Jon and I love. What is better than meatloaf with bacon on top and mashed potatoes! For the dessert she did a red velvet cake for me and a fun-fetti cake for Jon.

Colleen cut out C & J from cardboard and painted them in gold for the cake toppers. For the décor she used wine bottles and kept it simple and elegant with hydrangeas. We ate outside, which was lovely except for the muggy heat, which by the end of the meal had us all putting our hair up and dabbing peppermint oil on the back of our necks. This helps to cool the whole body down. It truly is a great trick as well as a great thing to keep in a wedding day rescue kit.

Here is a funny little anecdote from the party: Before we started the dessert I wanted to get a few more photos of everything she had set up. So I moved things around to get the best lighting and angle. I of course forgot that the cake was on a make-shift cakestand and wasn’t very steady. As I go to grab both cakes… the fun-fetti cake slides off the stand and crashes to the ground. Oops! Quickly my older sister and brother-in-law assembled to help clean up. Half of the cake survived. Of course no dinner can go by without some fiasco happening.

By having the engagement party as a meeting of the families we were able to have some great laughs over wine and become friends instead of just strangers meeting for the first time at the wedding.