Showers of Love and Happiness

Saturday (I know I'm going backwards in time) was my good friend Cary's bridal shower so I got to spend the day with her and her family and friends. Her bridal party and mom threw her such a beautiful and thoughtful shower! It took place at Cary's parents house which is up in East Hampton, CT right on Lake Pocotopaug (literally, their backyard leads right into the water!) We even got to see a little boat parade while eating lunch! And I finally got to see Summit's dock jumping skills in person!

Cary and her bridal party

Cary and her mom

Cary is the most eco-friendly, "green" person I know. And she has gone far and beyond to make their wedding have the smallest carbon footprint as possible (their wedding website tells all about it). Her bridal party and mom took the same care in planning her shower. All the food we ate was not only vegetarian but it was also local grown and SO delicious!! (It's amazing all of the farm stands I saw driving there! We are lucky we have our one local farm just down the road from us but they have numerous farms to choose from, makes me jealous!) And everyone except maybe 3 people (myself being included in the 3!) was so creative in the materials they used to wrap their gifts! From burlap bags and twine, to the comics page of the newspaper, to pillow cases and fabrics and re-useable shopping bags! Even cards were re-used; Cary's friend Jen who got married in July used the card front from one of the cards she'd gotten at her bridal shower! Some people even went as far as using safety pins instead of pieces of tape!! Why couldn't I have been more creative??!? I'm actually pretty disappointed in myself! I just went into the closet and grabbed the roll of wedding paper we had.

One of the many creative gift wrap

But now that I've seen an entire new way to reduce waste when it comes to gift giving I'm definitely going to adopt it! Our families already think I'm pretty crazy when it comes to some things environmentally wait 'til they hear about this one!

Cary who, like any other bride, does not like having all eyes on her did very well! Although we all got to see a bit of her "emotional side" she's told me about (funny the things that happen when a diamond ring gets placed on a girls finger!) I have no idea how she's going to get through her vows which she informed us are paragraphs long!! Her maid of honor, Caitlin may have to step in and read them for her!

After the shower a girls night (ie. bachelorette party) was planned. Suzanne's parents (one of Cary's bridesmaids) have a little house right on the Connecticut River which they call "The Shack" (by no means is it a shack!) and they were nice enough to let the 6 of us use it for the night. So while the 5 of us [Caitlin, Kelly, Suzanne (bridesmaids), Kelly, and I] were preparing The Shack, Cary was getting ready for a little scavenager hunt, glow in the dark penis veil and all!

The girls (with Cary's fiance James' help) had come up with the idea of placing each of us in an area that was significant to the both of them. And Cary was given a bag with a pair of underwear that had a clue which Caitlin made up about the person who got the underwear for Cary as well as where they were waiting to be picked up. It was a lot of fun, Cary even decided to put on each pair of underwear over her clothes as she got them! Such a good sport!

Cary in ALL her new underwear! (Don't worry she allowed me to post these!)

Suzanne, Kelly, Kelly, Cary, Caitlin, & Me

After some drinks and food we headed back to The Shack and had a bond fire, made smores and had a great girls night! It was so good to finally meet all of the friends Cary has always told me about! At first I was pretty nervous since I was the outsider but they all took me in as if I was always one of their friends! I really shouldn't have expected anything less knowing Cary. As Dave's Aunt Karen says, nice people are attracted to other nice people.