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Milwaukee Home

June 2006

Shower Savvy
Throw a delightful party for the bride-to-be by Jeanette Hurt

A beautiful invitation will set the tone for a bridal shower. Instead of picking up a generic box of cards from the drug store, consider creating a specialized invitation – it will add your personal touch to the event. “Invitations don’t have to be stuffy and traditional,” says Tracie Stier-Johnson, owner of Broadway Paper. “The best invitations we see are the ones where a lot of thought and personalization gets put into them, not where they come in and pull a box off the shelf and fill in the date and party statistics.” She advises party hostesses to really think about the bride. “Think of what her style is and what kind of event you’re throwing, which will probably be determined by the kind of wedding that’s being done,” Stier-Johnson says.

Store Manager Heather Stuart agrees. “If she loves to cook, or if it’s a kitchen shower, one idea is to include a recipe card with the invitation, so that guests can bring a recipe for the bride,” she says. There’s no limit to the creativity you can put into the project; if the wedding or honeymoon will be at the beach, you can glue tiny seashells onto the invitation. If you’re throwing a lingerie shower, include an icon of a negligee on the invitation. “What’s hot right now are monograms,” says Stuart, pointing out that shower invitations, save-the-date cards and thank you notes can all be tied together through monogramming.

Hostesses can select from dozens of products at Broadway Paper. “We have lots of different papers, vellums and ribbons,” says Stuart. She suggests matching invitation colors to wedding colors or even wrapping paper. “I’ve seen people use wrapped gifts as a shower centerpiece, rather than flowers,” she says, “and then that same paper is used as a backing paper on the invitation.”

Stier-Johnson says that employees at Broadway Paper will work with their customers to design the right invitation. “We sit down with our party organizers, and together, we can pull together their whole invitation,” she says.