Sassy Southern Baby Shower

Description

A friend and mama-to-be with Oklahoma roots is expecting her first child in a few short weeks, so a few of her closest friends got together to throw her (and her husband!) a sweet and simple Southern-inspired baby shower.

(All photos by one of the lovely co-hosts Jennifer Paschal Gottlieb, Bruce Forrester Photography in San Francisco.)

Design Inspiration

Classic Southern hospitality with a bright and modern twist.

Decorating Style

We kept the decorations simple, choosing a cheerful color palette of bright yellow, fuchsia, baby pink and gray. A handmade fabric scrap bunting adorned the fireplace, tissue paper pompoms crowned the dessert table and balloons were scattered throughout the party space. The hostess's home was already filled with amazing mid-century furniture and exceptionally cool creative touches and art, so the decorations didn’t need to do much work to make the space feel festive.

Project Details

Like many Southern celebrations (even if they are in San Francisco!), the food for the shower was our starting point. We relied heavily on the Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook to create the most authentic and tasty Southern menu around. Pimento cheese dip, deviled eggs, cucumber tea sandwiches, pulled pork sliders, three different pies, red velvet cupcakes and a variety of other treats filled the tables and the guests’ bellies.

We created a dessert bar filled with pies, candies and adorable baggies filled with homemade  chocolate chip cookies for guests to take home.

The mint juleps were a hit, and the teetotalers in the group imbibed in lemonade infused with strawberry, mint or ginger syrup. Beverages were served in mason jars with festive striped paper straws.

 

Favorite Items

It was a co-ed shower, so we didn’t play any of the usual baby shower games, but the hosts did want to leave our dear mama-to-be with some memories of the party and a few useful items as well. After brainstorming some ideas, we knew creating cute onesies for sweet baby Ruby would be the perfect activity.

I cut out some standard shapes, drew out a few design ideas and had handful of larger scrap pieces available for folks to create their own unique designs. After finding some washable fabric glue and picking up some rick rack (that wavy, ribbon-y trim) and buttons to use while decorating the onesies, the ladies at the shower got creative.

The finished onesies turned out to be completely adorable and every one was unique! We even had a few different sizes so baby Ruby will be fashionably outfitted until she’s at least a year old.

Advice

Make it fun by hosting with friends! Our party planning "team" managed to have a fun girls night in brainstorming ideas, creating a menu and divvying up the tasks. By starting the planning a few weeks ahead of time, we were able to get a lot of the work for decorations and food done in advance, so everyone was stress-free.

Our sources for decorations were a combination of things we already owned, local shops, Etsy and Sur la Table.