British Shower: The DecorUM

Get it, decorUM? Because British folks are so proper? O-kayyyyyy....

Quick side story about England and decorum: Living in North Carolina, I am really not used to mass transportation, and prefer the personal space of my car. Mass transit makes me nervous and I usually do something stupid while I'm on a bus, train, plane, metro, etc. One time I was in London on a bus with BM Bunny and another friend of ours. The bus stopped, and I let go of the pole I was holding onto briefly. Then the bus abruptly started and I went flying down the aisle, and the only way to stop myself was to grab onto something, and what I grabbed onto happened to be an older woman's boob. #lack of decorum

Anyways, I know you are dying to know how we decorated for this Britsh Shower. Luckily, I have a coworker who lived in England for a while. She donated most of the decor, and it was awesome. She had books, records, stuffed animals, and British cars...see?

We also used some of my milk glass vases, Cadbury minis, and British magazines I got in Ireland. The Beatles poster above - I got that for free, as well as a Queen of England sticker decal, from one of Vistaprint's awesomely free (just pay shipping) promotions!

The Favors:

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Cadbury Double Decker candy bar wrapped in a cute label courtesy of BM K.

The faux-to booth:

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Also created by BM K. Princes Charles, William, and Harry are all there as well as Paul McCartney and Elton John, and of course the Queen!
(That's me and Mini Magic!)

The recipe box:

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A box for the recipes was tough to find, so I got a tiny lunch box and decorated it. Her kitchen colors are red and black so I used those instead of a British theme. And there was a similar sticker on the inside that said "with love from your family and friends" - the sticker also helped to anchor the ribbon down.

Queen Accessories:

A throne, a sash, a crown, and a scepter. Scepter made by Mini Magic - she helped SO much, I decided to take her to Paris as a way of showing my gratitude!*

Other details:

Name tags that showed the person's relationship to the bride, and let each person complete the sentence "my favorite thing about england is...."


Straw Flair! Tutorial here.


Stupid Gooco-ed napkins.

This was such a disaster that I cannot elaborate on it anymore at this time, but promise I will in the future. Once I figure out how the damn thing works. And get some ink blocker - apparently that's like, important or something.

Finally, the games! We played two games. One was a quiz for guests to fill out about how well they know the bride. It was pretty vicious and people were negotiating for partial credit! In the end, Bridesmaid K won!

The next game was to spice up the gift opening some. For Pumpkin to open a gift, she first had to answer a question correctly. The questions corresponded to different categories such as London, Miss Pumpkin in England, The Groom in England, and Pop British culture. I think people enjoyed it, and it was just another little way to bring in the British theme (which as you hopefully can see, we had fully committed to!)

What are some of the details you loved about a shower you attended - or your own shower?

*Just kidding, I was already planning on taking her to Paris. We leave July 12th!