Couples Shower – New Orleans Style

With only four months left until we make things official, this weekend was time for our very first shower! Tres and I traveled to his hometown and where a lot of Tres’ family and our close friends live, Knoxville, TN. Our wonderful friends threw us the most amazing wedding shower I have ever been to. Set at Getteysview Country Club, the vibe was classy and fun, the food was melt in your mouth amazing, the drinks were free flowing, and the company was more than we could ever ask for!

We had friends travel from Memphis and Atlanta to be there, and my family came all the way from Mississippi while Tres’ mom came all the way from Florida! One thing about being engaged and having people celebrate you is realizing how many people really love you and would do anything in the world for you. It’s easy to forget and to take it for granted, but once you see every person who loves you in the same room together, it becomes so clear, and it makes you never want to take it for granted ever again.

While we had approximately 50 of the people who love us most there, I couldn’t help but imagine how many more would be there at our wedding and how loved we will feel on that day four months from now. Loved… excited… and overwhelmed. Can I just say that feeling a lot of love is sometimes very stressful! I got a little dose of what wedding day would be like at this shower: the stress of getting hair and makeup done – pretty and on time, running around talking to everyone in the room at the party, hoping everyone is having a good time and is well-entertained, NOT EATING, and the most heartbreaking part of all… how it all goes by so quickly. This shower was 3 hours – same as our wedding reception will be – and it FLEW by. It felt like a mere hour from the time we walked in the shower until my parents were packing up our gifts and heading out the door.

I have to say, this was the perfect practice for what the wedding is going to be like and I learned five things:
1) I need to calm down... and do it on my own – not by downing two glasses of wine in under 30 minutes.
2) If people want to talk to me, they will come talk to me. I don’t have to run up to every person in the room I make eye contact with. They have friends there and don’t need me to entertain them.
3) EAT! Everyone knows food is always my #1 priority, well when you are too busy talking and running around, it’s true – you don’t eat. I cannot let this happen at the wedding!
4) Stop for a minute alone, look at everyone in the room, enjoy the setting, and take it all in – realize how blessed I am to be getting married to someone so wonderful and to be celebrating with so many wonderful people.
5) Have Tres beside me all night. With two people trying to talk to so many people, it’s easy to split up – Tres and I didn’t see each other for the first half of the shower. We can’t do this at the wedding!

With a few lessons learned, a mountain of wonderful gifts to take home, and speeches and toasts that will remain in my mind for a lifetime, I feel so blessed to have the family and friends we had at our shower Saturday night. It means the world to me that my parents and grandparents would make the trip to meet everyone and experience the shower with me. It was a true blessing to have Tres mom come from so far away and enjoy it with us. It was so wonderful to have Tres’ Knoxville family there are well. And as for Tres’ friends… he is so blessed with the group of friends he has – it’s truly a unique and uncommon group – there are so many of them, and they all love him so much. I have never seen anything like it with a group of guys – they are truly his second family, and I am so grateful to say that they are now mine!

Thanks to Lori and Elise for all the décor – it was straight from “The Big Easy” and perfect! Thanks to the guys involved in throwing the shower: Trevor, JG, Mike, Cole, Boog. And thank you to Tres’ mom, Carol, and Tres’ sister, Renee for completing the New Orleans theme by getting authentic cakes and desserts delivered straight from New Orleans all the way to Knoxville. You guys are ALL THE BEST! We loved everything!

FAMILY
Grandmother, Me, Momma
Family and Soon-to-be Family
FRIENDS
The girls After hours... Martini Bar
Me and the HOSTesses with the MOSTesses! The Guys
Hip, Hip, Horray! Hip Hip Horray... FOR TRES!
CHAMPAGNE TOASTS
Mike's speech Us laughing at one of our friend's toasts! GIFTS
Can you tell how much we love wine?
Adore our china!