KELSEY’S TUSCAN KITCHEN WEDDING SHOWER

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My good friend Kelsey got married on Kootenay Lake at the end of August, so a couple of weeks before the wedding, the bridal party threw Kelsey a wedding shower inspired by a beautiful Tuscan soirée! Kelsey is half Italian, has traveled to Italy, and really loves good food and wine (let’s be honest — we all really love good food and wine)! Today I’m sharing her shower details; complete with decor inspiration (and lots of sunflowers!), an authentic Italian menu, my White Citrus Sangria recipe, a cute kitchen-themed shower game, and a fun guest favour DIY.

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Leah (Kelsey’s sister and MOH) hosted us for the party. Kelsey, Leah, Sheryl and I all attended the Alberta College of Art and design, and that’s how we met — we’re all creative types! It was so fun to dream up the vision for Kelsey’s shower with them. Leah came up with the kitchen theme idea, and we all chatted about how we could make the shower really represent Kelsey. We went with a Tuscan Kitchen theme, and the bridal party brainstormed about ideas. We decided on a classic Italian look and feel — red checkered table cloths, cream linens (that Leah actually picked up at a market in Florence), sunflowers, and vintage kitchen items to plate authentic Italian tapas.

Working with a colour palette of red, cream, yellow and green with gold accents, I put together a little mood board outlining the details we had discussed, and sourced some vintage kitchen props.

Then, it was time to talk about the menu! We all shared in food and drink prep — Leah made a batch of my White Citrus Sangria, fresh lemonade and prosciutto wrapped melon balls. She ordered a delicious meat cheese and olive platter, Italian cookies and the best tiramisu I’ve ever tasted — all from Lina’s Italian Market here in Calgary.

I made bocconcini skewers and brought over baguettes with oil and vinegar (a girl dinner staple), and Marlo picked up some olives and made her authentic bruschetta recipe. It was definitely a major feast — and we were planning on a ‘light lunch’. A lot of Kelsey’s friends and colleagues work in the food and events industry, so it’s easy to get a bit carried away! There were about 15 of us, and we actually did pretty well on that spread!

Our friend Kate (who we also met at ACAD) is an awesome hand-letterer, so she did the chalk artwork for the sign. I made a little template for Kate to refer to, using Kelsey’s wedding invite fonts (which Kelsey designed herself), because we’re total design nerds! Kate translated it to the chalk board (which Sheryl sourced). We’re a good team like that!

Sheryl and I put together some sunflower arrangements with lots of greenery and orchids. The sunflowers are from a local grocery store — they were in season. Sheryl’s a wedding planner, so she was able to source some beautiful accent flowers and greenery for us.

For games, we wanted to keep it simple and classy. So, Leah made a Recipe for a Happy Marriage mason jar, and each guest wrote a little piece of advice for Kelsey and Frank. Those little notes are something Kelsey will always have as a memory of her wedding shower.

Then Kelsey opened gifts — a lot of which were food and drink related!

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FAVOURS

DIY Wooden Utensil Favour

We kept it simple but personal for guest favours too. I originally got the idea to paint wooden kitchen utensils from this pin, and thought we could easily use that as inspiration for a kitchen-themed favour. There were 5 of us working on them (thanks Leah, Sheryl, Kate and Elise for your awesome crafting skills!) and it took us about 3 hours to make 20 spoons, with the exception of the final varnish.

We decided on red for the handles, and then a simple “Kelsey {heart} Frank” for the hand lettering in white. Again, we referenced Kelsey’s wedding invites for typography. Here’s a breakdown of how we made them!

Materials

• Wooden utensils — we bought ours at Home Sense, in packs of 5
• Painters tape
• Red and white acrylic paint (or whatever palette you’re working with)
• Wide paint brushes (for painting the handle)
• Thin paint brushes (for the hand lettering)
• Matte or semi gloss varnish (to seal the paint)

Directions

1. Tape the utensil handles off where you want the painted section to end. Consider how long the words are that you’ll be painting on the handle to make sure you’ll have enough room.

2. Paint the utensil handle down to the tape with your coloured acrylic paint. We needed 2 coats for a fully opaque layer.  Allow enough time for the paint to completely dry between layers.

3. Once the paint is fully dry, start on the hand lettering, using the white paint. It’s easiest when you can reference a specific font. Kate did the first spoon (she had Kelsey’s wedding invite pulled up on her phone to reference), and then Sheryl and I used her spoons as a template (even though ours weren’t as good, haha!).

4. Once the hand lettering is fully dry, paint a thin coat of varnish over top to seal the paint in. We waited overnight, and Leah sealed the utensils the next day just to be safe. We wanted guests to actually be able to use these, so the varnish protects the paint from wear and chipping.

5. This is optional, but Kelsey designed a custom stamp for her wedding, so we borrowed it to make little tags. First we cut square pieces of construction paper, then coated her stamp in gold metallic ink and stamped the paper. Then, we hole punched a corner of the tag, strung twine through the tag and hole in the top of the spoon, and tied it off. This was a little nod to her nautical wedding theme. 🙂

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It was such a fun day, full of awesome company that to came together to celebrate Kelsey! It was so nice to finally meet all the ladies in person that Kelsey has talked about over the years.

Here we all are — the bride and the bridal party (minus Frank’s sister, Juliana, who lives in the Maritimes). We missed you, Juliana! Left to right, top to bottom: Marlo, Leah, me, Kelsey, Sheryl. 

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Are you planning a wedding shower for a friend, or looking for inspiration? I’m definitely not an expert, but if you have any questions about Kelsey’s shower or favours, leave them for me in the comments!

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Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored, and contains my genuine thoughts, ideas and recommendations.